Gabriella Pierce: 666 Park Avenue (2011)
25. juni 2011I was duly warned about this being brainless chick-lit, and it is. There’s also quite a bit of fashion-related namedropping in it of which I couldn’t care less. And the basic plot about witches in Manhattan’s high society is, to say the least, silly. But that aside, the novel is actually written in a good language, the story flows nicely along and the novel doesn’t try to be anything other than a nice beach read. So far, so good, although it’s not my preferred type of novel.
What I don’t get at all is the way the protagonist Jane Doyle acts. She’s all girly and dainty and bea-uuutiful and European. She lets her mother-in-law boss her around to an incredible extent and her fiance walk all over her, and her only response is to buy new underwear and faint when shocked. But she also saves said fiance’s backside, fights her way out of an attempted rape and escapes into the sequal (not a very elegant transition, I might add – Pierce might as well just have ended the novel with a big sign saying: NOW BUY THE NEXT VOLUME!).
Jane is definitely acting, strongly and independently – but only when hard pressed. Is this the new feminine ideal, I wonder? A woman who can hold her own and defend herself, but who only does so as a last resort?