Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt write chick lit with a twist: all their novels are retellings of Biblical stories. Their first, “Emily Ever After” was the story of Esther, and their second, “Consider Lilly” was the story of Samson and Delilah. Both are wonderfully fun and, in addition to religion, have the romance, fashion, crazy friends, family, and professional ups and downs typical of the chick lit heroines we have long come to know and love, like Bridget Jones (Helen Fielding) and Becky Bloomwood (Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic).
But the third novel by Dayton and Vanderbilt, “The Book of Jane”, which was just released, retells the story of Job (yes, Job, complete with all the unbelievable woes)–and it is my hands-down favorite so far. I kid you not: “Jane” will make you laugh, cry, want to tear your hair out with worry (Jane has a lot of seriously awful things that, well, quite literally pour down on her pretty little head), and sigh with envy in the romance department.
Briefly: Jane starts off with the perfect life: the perfect job (she does PR for the Statue of Liberty–how cool is that?), the perfect apartment (yes, she owns it), and the perfect hottie boyfriend (yes, he’s about to propose!). And then, like Job, her faith gets challenged when all these and more are taken away in a blizzard of unfortunate events.
But then, that’s where experiencing a crisis of faith and romance begin to collide. Leave it to Dayton and Vanderbilt to weave romance into the story of Job, complete with the requisite debonaire, Darcy-like hero.
Who ever said that Job couldn’t be beach reading of the best kind?
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