Title: The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather

Author: Alexandra Potter

Publisher: Plume 2010

Genre: Chick lit

Pages: 400

Rating:   3 / 5 stars

Reading Challenges: Summer Romance - Contemporary

Imagine if you could go back ten years and meet your younger self--would you recognize her?  What advice would you give her? Wear sunscreen.  Back away from those pleather pants.  Don't give that idiot your phone number.  Lemon juice won't bleach your hair, it just attracts wasps.  He's the one--don't let hm get away.  For Charlotte Merryweather, there's no need to imagine.  She's about to find out for real... with some surprising consequences.

My first thought after finishing... "It was alright."  I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't love it.  It was okay.  It was mediocre.  It was something to read for a day, I guess.  My real problem lies with the characters.  Looking back over part book reviews, I am always talking about the characters.  I guess I really need good characters to love a book.  And this book gave me alright characters.  Charlotte, the present Charlotte, was way to neurotic.  I guess she's supposed to be.  It's the Christmas Carol syndrome.  Take a crazy/neurotic/angry/depress/etc person and show them their past, present, and probably future.  They do a 180 degree change, and everything works out in the end.  Just like in A Christmas Carol, I cannot stand the main character.  Charlotte is too crazy/neurotic/silly.  I can't even want her to change.  I just want her to go away.  I understand the point is to show you what could have happened and what went wrong, but shouldn't I be rooting for the character.?  I just wasn't at all.  And so I don't care about the book.  The premise was interesting, but the characters just didn't make me care.

As I read back over this review, I may be a bit harsh on the book.  Once Charlotte meets Lottie (about 150 pages into the book), I started to see her as a real person and not a crazy stereotype.  By the end of the book, I started to somewhat care for her.  But I still stand by that she wasn't a character I could connect to.  And I guess that's why I'm sticking with my 3 star rating.