I Never Fancied Him Anyway

August 24, 2009
Cassandra, a Dublin magazine columnist, has three best friends and an unlucky love life, a familiar setup that author Carroll (Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man
) shakes up with a whimsical device: her likable, humorous chick lit narrator is psychic—but no believer in the occult. Cassie's involuntary “flashes,” as she calls them, usually involve the love lives of strangers, but when she catches a glimpse of her own romantic future, Cassie's mystified to discover that her “fabulously wealthy” best friend Charlene is dating the man of her visions. Caught among fate, friendship and the rare possibility of fulfilling romance, Cassie struggles mightily with her desire and guilt, though readers will find the choice between unsympathetic Charlene—a disagreeable comic misfire—and dream guy a no-brainer. Carroll gives Cassie enough wit and charm to make up for a hackneyed media world setting and grating details—egregious puns (“a black belt in tongue-fu”), Manolo Blahniks, evil bosses—making this an exercise in pure (if predictable) chick lit fun.