Overview
The New York Times Bestseller
“Acidly funny, imaginatively profane, and, above all, a sharp reflection of the what-to-do-now, post-college dilemma.”
—Miami Herald
Is the real world ready for Jessica Darling?
At first it seems she’s living the New York City dream. She’s subletting an apartment with her best friend, working for a magazine that actually cares about her psychology degree, and still deeply in love with the charismatic Marcus Flutie.
But reality is more complicated than dreamy clichés.
When Marcus proposes—giving her only one week to answer—Jessica must decide if she’s ready to give up a world of late-night literary soirees, art openings, and downtown drunken karaoke to move back to New Jersey and be with the one man who’s gripped her heart for years. Jessica ponders this and other life choices with her signature snark and hyper-intense insight, making it the most tumultuous and memorable week of her twenty-something life.
Synopsis
The New York Times Bestseller
“Acidly funny, imaginatively profane, and, above all, a sharp reflection of the what-to-do-now, post-college dilemma.”
—Miami Herald
Is the real world ready for Jessica Darling?
At first it seems she’s living the New York City dream. She’s subletting an apartment with her best friend, working for a magazine that actually cares about her psychology degree, and still deeply in love with the charismatic Marcus Flutie.
But reality is more complicated than dreamy clichés.
When Marcus proposes—giving her only one week to answer—Jessica must decide if she’s ready to give up a world of late-night literary soirees, art openings, and downtown drunken karaoke to move back to New Jersey and be with the one man who’s gripped her heart for years. Jessica ponders this and other life choices with her signature snark and hyper-intense insight, making it the most tumultuous and memorable week of her twenty-something life.
Publishers Weekly
Acerbic heroine Jessica Darling is faced with the post-college conundrum-what now?-in McCafferty's fourth (following Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpingsand Charmed Thirds). Her answer is to finally break it off with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, who, after cleaning up his drug habit, studying Buddhism and spending some time in Death Valley, is now at Princeton. But before she can break up with him, he pops the question, and she mulls her response for a week. The bulk of the novel is made up of Jessica's satirical observations on life in New York: the tiny room in a basement sublet she shares with her best friend Hope; her nonjob for a magazine that pays so little she has to mooch off of her older sister; her friends who convince her to go to a club where she is hit on by a seven-foot-tall drag queen named Royalle G. Biv. Though the acid descriptions of city life are as hilarious as in the previous books (her landlord says of her eyebrows: "Zey are like two desperate sperm trying to impregnate your eyeballs!"), the book lacks cohesion, and the ending is a letdown. Like cotton candy, it's sweet and fluffy but has no substance. (Sept.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
Acerbic heroine Jessica Darling is faced with the post-college conundrum-what now?-in McCafferty's fourth (following Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpingsand Charmed Thirds). Her answer is to finally break it off with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, who, after cleaning up his drug habit, studying Buddhism and spending some time in Death Valley, is now at Princeton. But before she can break up with him, he pops the question, and she mulls her response for a week. The bulk of the novel is made up of Jessica's satirical observations on life in New York: the tiny room in a basement sublet she shares with her best friend Hope; her nonjob for a magazine that pays so little she has to mooch off of her older sister; her friends who convince her to go to a club where she is hit on by a seven-foot-tall drag queen named Royalle G. Biv. Though the acid descriptions of city life are as hilarious as in the previous books (her landlord says of her eyebrows: "Zey are like two desperate sperm trying to impregnate your eyeballs!"), the book lacks cohesion, and the ending is a letdown. Like cotton candy, it's sweet and fluffy but has no substance. (Sept.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationVOYA -
In this final (perhaps) installment in the Jessica Darling series, Marcus has just entered Princeton and Jessica has decided that she does not want to be the girlfriend of a twenty-two-year-old college freshman. Her attempt to break up with Marcus is derailed by a marriage proposal, with seven days to consider her answer. In a purposefully ironic twist, her closest friend, Hope, is more fully present here, and Jessica is writing to Marcus as she tries to arrive at a decision. The relationships around her flavor her choice, and readers are privy to new details about high school friends as well as to more information about Jessica's parents-whose marriage appears to be rocky-and her sister's marriage. Readers also meet Hugo, Marcus's older brother, who offers insightful stories about Marcus's childhood that begin to lead to the denouement. The themes in this book are more adult, in terms of focusing on career and housing as opposed to school, so this volume might not have the same teen appeal as others in the series. Fans will be delighted that Jessica's acerbic wit and '80s references are consistent. Her voice matures without losing the kernel of keen observation that is pure Jess, and although the ending might not satisfy all readers, it cannot have concluded any other way. A must-have for libraries where previous installments are popular, this book should be shelved in adult fiction and recommended as an A/YA crossover title for mature teen readers.Library Journal
McCafferty's fourth installment (after Charmed Thirds) in a series featuring livewire Jessica Darling attempts to cross the bridge between teen fiction and adult chick lit. Jessica has now graduated from college and is living in a Brooklyn sublet with her best friend, Hope, and their gender-bending high school classmate, Manda, earning a pitiful living babysitting her niece and editing for an almost nonexistent magazine. When Marcus, the love of her life, proposes to her from his dorm at Princeton, she takes the next week to decide whether she wants to marry the 22-year-old freshman or go on living her life in New York-a city he hates-without him. Despite the novel's witty and candid writing style, Jessica Darling was perhaps better left in her teen years and McCafferty's talents better put to use beginning a new series for twentysomethings. This installment is unlikely to win new readers, although fans of the series will definitely want to read it. Recommended only where the first three novels were popular.
—Anika Fajardo