Julie's Review: Girls' Poker Night

Summary: Dissatisfied both with writing a “Single Girl on the Edge/ Ledge/Verge” lifestyle column and with her boyfriend (who has a name for his car and compulsively collects plastic bread ties), Ruby Capote sends her best columns and a six-pack of beer to the editor of The New York News and lands herself a new job in a new city. In New York, Ruby undertakes the venerable tradition of Poker Night—a way (as men have always known) to eat, drink, smoke, analyze, interrupt one another, share stories, and, most of all, raise the stakes. There’s Skorka, model by profession, homewrecker by vocation; Jenn, willing to cross county lines for true love; Danielle, recently divorced, seducer of at least one father/son combo in her quest to make up for perceived “missed opportunities.” When Ruby falls for her boss, Michael, all bets are off. He’s a challenge. He’s her editor. And he wants her to stop being quippy and clever and become the writer—and the woman—he knows she can be. Adding to Ruby’s uncertainty is his amazing yet ambiguous kiss in the elevator, and the enjoyably torturous impasse of he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not. What happens when you realize that Mr. Right has his own unresolved past? Where does that leave the future you envisioned? Ruby knows that happy endings aren’t for cowards, and she hasn’t lost hope that there are risks worth taking. As smart as it is laugh-out-loud funny, Girls’ Poker Night is a twenty-first-century His Girl Friday and a re-freshingly upbeat look at friendship, work, and love. ~amazon.com

Review: You know how you want to like a book and you have high hopes for it but then it lets you down? That was my experience with Girls' Poker Night: A Novel of High Stakes. It just didn't do anything for me in the end. There were a couple of parts where I laughed and I did like Ruby. Although I wouldn't want to be Ruby's friend because she's the kind of friend who tries to make everything better by making a joke out of it. Sure, I like a friend who cracks jokes and makes me laugh but I also want a friend who I know will really listen to me. I'm not sure Rudy knows how to listen. She is a good hearer but listener is questionable. The " tell jokes to cover up my pain" got old for me quickly.

I get that her dad leaving and then dying scared her but I just felt that she kept people at arms length because she didn't want to have to open up. She settled for being less than her true self. When Michael pushed her to be better than she was, she fled by finding something that wasn't perfect about him. I will say that Michael's past was certainly not what I was expecting and happy it wasn't the typical chick-lit paths.

I liked her group of friends and I liked how they eventually went at her about opening herself up. You can't be in friendships and have your friends always confessing without giving up some of your own secrets.

I also didn't like the flow of the writing style. It seemed to choppy and jumped around a lot. I don't mind feeling like I'm in a character's head but it didn't suit this book.

This is the 2nd book I've read by Jill A. Davis and I can't say that I'd be real anxious to read another one.

Final Take: 3/5