Book ~ "Bitter is the New Black" (2006) Jen Lancaster

From Amazon ~ It doesn't take Lancaster long to live up to her lengthy subtitle ("Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office"): in just one chapter, she gloats over cheating a homeless man, is rude to a waitress and passes judgment on all of her co-workers (including her "whore" best friend). She's almost gleeful about lacking "the internal firewall that keeps us from saying almost everything we think," but she doesn't come off as straightforward, just malicious. (Of course, it's possible she's making up much of her dialogue, which is a little too clever to be believable.) Lancaster expects sympathy for her downward slide after getting fired from her high-paying finance job in the post-9/11 recession, and chick lit fans may be entertained watching life imitate fiction, but just when you start to feel sorry for her, the snotty attitude returns. In later chapters, Lancaster increasingly relies on entries from her blog (www.jennsylvania. com) and caustic replies to criticisms, and though things start looking up—her husband finds a job, she lands a book deal—it's not clear that she's been as chastised by her experiences as she claims.

I think the above is a fair review.

I enjoyed her Such a Pretty Fat last month. The writing was fun and sarcastic.

I found that I really disliked her in the beginning of Bitter is the New Black ... she was so shallow, ignorant and arrogant. I almost didn't keep going ... but I did.

Jen and her husband went from being cocky and having it all ... to being unemployed and having to give up everything (they were pennies away from having to move in with her parents). At no point, though, did I ever feel sorry for them.

Most of the time, it's a fun read so I'd recommend it for that.

Her use of footnotes on pretty almost freakin' page drove me crazy!