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Overview
Sydney Zamora is fiercely independent, aggressively opinionated, and utterly self-made. She’s reshaped her body (into the perfect sample-sale outfitted size 6, thank you very much), organized a life for herself as a celebrity journalist at hot magazine Cachet, and strides through the canyons of New York City like she owns them. There’s just one problem: Sydney is so strong that she plays keep-away with men. But now that she’s hitting her midthirties, she wants one. Badly. For her birthday, Sydney’s sister ambushes her with the services of Mitzi Berman, $40,000 a shot Manhattan matchmaker extraordinaire. Mitzi also has her eyes on Max Cooper, the scion of Harvey’s department store, the chicest place to shop in America. And nothing could make either Sydney or Max Cooper run faster than Mitzi, with her rules and her Brooklyn accent—that is, if they didn’t concede her a point or two. Peopled with vivid, hilarious characters, Feminista is fast-moving fiction whose themes of independence, image and the com pli - cated relationship between the sexes in the working world recall the best of Rona Jaffe.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
This crazed black romantic comedy from journalist and author Kennedy (Bling) charts the rocky course of Sydney Zamora, a very angry single. The Cachet magazine writer decides, at 33, that she's got to get married before her eggs sour. So her rich sister hires Mitzi Berman, a successful Manhattan matchmaker, to find Sydney's Mr. Right. Mitzi's challenge, as she sees it, is transforming fierce feminista Sydney into a dress-wearing girly girl (says Mitzi: “If you don't make some radical changes in your behavior, you will die alone”). Catching Sydney's eye is the fabulous Max Cooper, the spoiled playboy heir of a department store fortune, but can her politics mix with his background? Truly, their path to connubial bliss is barbed with obstacles, charted with sarcastic glee by Kennedy, a pioneer of chick lit's naughty stepsister—bitch lit. (Sept.)Library Journal
Sydney Zamora has rebuilt her life and sculpted her body after a humiliating breakup. She doesn't need anybody else, right? Wrong. After seeing her friends coupling up, Sydney wants a relationship on demand but insists on doing everything possible to ensure that she will not have one. Determined to change things, she decides to take some advice (and criticism) from a prominent matchmaker for the wealthy. Enter Max Cooper, a rich bachelor with relationship issues of his own, who becomes a foil for Sydney's version of a self-made woman. Girl meets boy with mixed results. VERDICT Kennedy's (Bling) retelling of The Taming of the Shrew mixed with a dose of pop psychology features some edgy content that makes this inappropriate for teens interested in chick lit, and readers who enjoy fluffier takes on that genre will be disappointed. But readers interested in strong female protagonists and heartier women's fiction will be willing to join Sydney on her journey.—Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz, Cleveland P.L.Kirkus Reviews
Kennedy (Bling, 2004.) tweaks the template to create a beautiful, biracial, brainy heroine, far hipper than chick-lit is used to. Celebrity journalist Sydney Zamora is also self-centered, mostly friendless, mean, aggressive and deeply wounded (all will be explained on that last front by novel's end). In her early 30s, Sydney decides to get serious and find a man to marry and father her children. All those artists, actors and waiters who can't afford her lifestyle are banished from her line of vision. And thanks to a birthday gift from her sister Liz, Sydney now has New York's premier matchmaker on her side. But while Mitzi Berman is working on a Mr. Right, Sydney is having a light fling with Max. She thinks he's a doorman at Harvey's, New York's most exclusive department store, but he's actually heir to the Harvey's fortune, playing along with the misunderstanding. Once Max had great fun doling out "it" bags in return for blowjobs from models, but now he's in love with Sydney and is afraid her professed contempt for elitism-which doesn't seem to hamper her buying into its trappings-will drive her away if she learns his true status. Mitzi sends Sydney on a few disastrous dates (she's not very nice), she loses her job (she's not very nice), and she dumps Max (she's still not very nice). Can this seriously flawed protagonist work it out, get her man and win her readers' sympathy? Kennedy's portrait of brash, abrasive Sydney is sometimes funny but more often troubling. Her aggression is blamed on her feminism, and that "problem" is solved when she acquiesces to her innate desire to be taken care of by a strong man. Sydney claims to disdain materialism, yet the novel trades in the usualconsumerist fantasies of commercial women's fiction. For all the trash talking and politicizing, in essence as frothy and predictable as a fairy tale.From the Publisher
"Every successful woman with an 'S' for single on her chest (and a target on her back) can relate as Sydney struggles with wanting to ‘be the girl’ and be in constant control. The great thing about this hilarious novel is that Erica Kennedy makes us wonder if that's possible while also questioning whether it's necessary." —Helena Andrews, author of Bitch Is The New Black"Feminista is smart, hilarious, and totally of the moment. Every feminist fashionista will find herself on these pages, as Erica Kennedy uses wit and verve to take a look at some of the tough decisions women have to make on the road to having it all. One of the most enjoyable reads of the year."— Rebecca Walker, author of Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence.
"Why can't all women's fiction be as funny, smart and witty as Feminista?"—Anna David, author of Bought and Party Girl
“Kennedy tweaks the template to create a beautiful, biracial, brainy heroine, far hipper than chick-lit is used to.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Feminista is a love story for women, like Sydney, who aren’t quite sure they still believe in love. A feminist page-turner that will have readers laughing in recognition of the twists and turns of the dating jungle." —Rachel Kramer Bussel, editor of Fast Girls
“A story of two people that may be perfect for each other despite their differences set amid the flash of New York City.”—News and Sentinel (Parkersburg, WV)
“Feminista [boasts an] unapologetically ballsy protagonist, Sydney, a writer who finds love almost despite herself.”—www.thefrisky.com
“In turn uplifting, funny, a little sad and always, always entertaining.”—www.bookshipper.blogspot.com
“Erica Kennedy's Feminista is funny, charming, and just possibly too close to home…Sydney is hardly a typical heroine.”—www.opednews.com
“Kennedy jazzes up the chick-lit formula with a cast of colorful characters and plots inspired by TMZ and Page Six…readers will enjoy Kennedy’s humor (she’s a master of the well-aimed zinger) and the fictionalized real-life dramas she inserts in the story.”—Newsday