Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination

So, I've spent the last ten minutes trying to decide what to write about (the advantage of all that reading I mentioned - you do remember that don't you? Maybe you should re-read all of my posts, just to be sure - is that I don't actually have to read a new book for every blogpost) and, after much thought (ten minutes worth, in fact), I plumped for "Olivia Joules". It has many advantages, not least of which is the fact that I happened to have read it recently, so I remember my thoughts.

It is the novel Helen Fielding wrote after "Bridget Jones", and has many of the merits of the aforementioned work. In brief, it is the story of freelance journalist, Olivia Joules and her overactive imagination. Now, aren't you glad you read the review? Wasn't that helpful? Oh, ok then, I'll be a little less brief. If you insist. Olivia, we are told, has got into trouble for her imagination on a few occasions, so is now more or less stuck in the Style section of the newspapers to whom she sells her stories. This upsets her, as she wants to cover "real stories", so, when she is sent to Miami for a fashion piece, her imagination goes into overdrive.

Inevitably, her suspicions turn out to be, while not entirely accurate, at least in the right ballpark, and she is swept away in a whirlwind of adventure, involving spies, actors and Al-Qaeda. Fielding uses her heroine as a chance to express her personal views on the Iraq war (or at least, I assume they're her views), but she manages to do this without becoming tiresome or nagging.

I'm not going to go into more detail about the plot, but it's all rather implausible in the best kind of way. Olivia has all of the warmth of Bridget Jones with some extra self-confidence and without the self-help books. The novel is, unfortunately, not quite the same standard as her previous work, but it comes pretty damn close. The difference, I think, is that in this novel, Fielding is not writing in the first person, but as an omniscient narrator, which leads her into the temptation of occasionally adding in some chick-lit-ish descriptive passages, which aren't really necessary.

These rare slips aside though, its a fun novel, entertainingly written and satisfies all of the escapism demands one has of light novels. I really enjoyed it and have re-read it several times. Perfect for those moments when you want entertainment, but haven't the energy to read a tougher novel.