Fast mail from no-smoke home. Perfect pages. Cover has nearly no shelfwear. Spine is creased but it's straight & binding is tight. Flat book with no curling corners! Condition: Very Good
Not as good as I thought it would be From the excerpt and initial synopsis, I thought this would be a great book but I was deffinitely dissapointed. That she finds satisfaction teaching young girls was nice but not realizing what she had in her "best friend" and constantly going back to her useless "mentor" was frustrating. By the end, I just wanted to slap her and tell her to "wake up and get a life". I definitely wouldn't read this again.
Easy read and entertaining This book was a great fast read - I had not read anything by Ellen Shanman before, but had seen a review for this book. My attention was held throughout the book. I will however caution that if you are looking for a challenging read, this is not it. A neat story and fairly predictable.
A great book and a special price too!! Michaela (Mike) is a wonderful character! She was raised by a standoffish father after her mother died when she was three. He didn't know how to deal with his own grief much less his daughter's so Mike has a personality with a few flaws. She totally lacks people skills and is afraid to get emotionally involved with anyone. She has a habit of saying whatever she thinks and doesn't have a lot of insight into what other people are feeling.
Her life has hit a major glitch. She's been fired from her job, can't afford her apartment so is forced to move in with her father and (surprise!) his soon to be bride. And to put the icing on the cake, her ex-boyfriend is using her as the brunt of his jokes in comedy clubs around New York. Can it get any worse? Yes!
While interviewing at a charter school for a public relations job, she finds herself instead filling in for a teacher on sick leave teaching a life skills course to 11 seventh graders! The first lesson is supposed to be making granola which she quickly changes to how to have a conversation without hand raising. As she sees it "Life Skills doesn't have to be a useless period for tatting and darning. What if instead she could teach them all those vital tidbits that no one had ever taught her? The things she'd had to learn the hard way. She could genuinely equip them for life, spare them some of the knocks she'd taken, and perhaps fit the world with eleven more sensible, palatable women that she herself wouldn't mind being in a room with. This could be a good thing."
This includes recognizing obnoxious behavior on subways, basic self-defense, how to spot scams, body image and why they should never base anything on how they looked. She would assign them to do one thing that scared them so they could learn never to be afraid of anything.
I enjoyed all of the characters in this book. The 11 little girls were marvelous and their interactions with Mike so very well written. Cheryl, another teacher who floats around in many scarves and takes a big interest in Mike's Australian friend, Gunther. Mike's dad and Deja (fiancee) and her daughters who give Mike ready made sisters whether she wants them or not.
My review is longer than normal but I totally recommend this book and hope that I've piqued your interest. It's a keeper! fine chick lit character study In Manhattan Michaela "Mike" Edwards learns the truth when she was fired from her job as a copy writer at A.S. Logan Advertising because she bet on the wrong horse at the office politics race and no one on the other teams wants a woman who cannot relate to other females. No income means no more expensive New York apartment so she moves back in with dear old dad who raised her as a single father and his live in girlfriend.
Mike obtains work as a substitute life skills teacher to a group of seventh-grade girls. She wants to nuke the curriculum which teaches girls to be domestic girlie girls instead of all you can be. Meanwhile, she and visiting Aussie reporter Gunther seem attracted to one another, but he must soon leave the city of "oy vey" pessimism to return to home land of sunny optimism.
Mike is fabulous as a tomboyish kick butt woman who cannot cope with the inane office females arguing over mascara and lipstick color; she prefers to be one of the guys. The story line is fast-paced as she struggles with earning money, residing in the land of barbarians (Brooklyn), teaching girls to cook and sew, and dealing with Gunther who has turned her life upside down. Fans will enjoy Ellen Shanman's fine chick lit character study as the heroine makes EVERYTHING NICE, RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES.
Harriet Klausner
great read I normally don't read "chick lit" books. Not because I don't think there are some great reads out there, but as a dumb guy, I usually don't get them... at all. "Everything Nice" was different. The main character Michaela is engaging. Although most of can't relate to her (tall, beautiful, confident and smart) - her journey is one we all must embark on: finding ourselves. And the author uses clever devices to move that journey along. There was plenty of humor and witty banter to keep me laughing and enough heart and truth to keep me reading.
