Review "Sleeping Arrangements"

Some information

Title: Sleeping Arrangements

Author: Sophie Kinsella (writing as Madeleine Wickham)

Pages: 304

Genre: Chick Lit

Published: October 2010

Publisher: Black Swan

My Source: Boekenfestijn Ghent

My score on Goodreads: 2 stars

Covertext

An early bestseller from the fabulous author of the Shopaholic series. Chloe needs a holiday. She's sick of making wedding dresses and her partner Philip has trouble at work. Her wealthy friend Gerard has offered the loan of his luxury villa in Spain -- perfect.

Hugh is not a happy man. His immaculate wife Amanda seems more interested in the granite for the new kitchen than in him, and he works so hard to pay for it all, he barely has time for his family. But his old schoolfriend Gerard has lent them a luxury villa in Spain -- perfect.

Both families arrive at the villa and get a shock: Gerard has double-booked. An uneasy week of sharing begins, and tensions soon mount in the soaring heat. But there's also a secret history between the families -- and as tempers fray, an old passion begins to resurface.

My Review

Hmm I was a little bit disappointed after reading this book. I love books by Sophie Kinsella (Madeleine Wickham) because they are funny, witty and have unexpected twists and turns. This book didn't seem to offer me those things. It was long and there wasn't much variation. It seemed to go on and on without something happening. We have two main characters, Chloe and Hugh, and their families on a strange holiday. Because of a "misunderstanding" they are booked in the same villa in Spain for the same period. Without wanting this, the two families have to live together and share their holiday even though they wanted some private time with their own families. The thing I didn't like about Chloe and Hugh is that they don't develop or change. They just stay the same person through the whole book and this makes the ending very predictable. It's not that I expect people to change in a week time, but the thing is... Chloe and Hugh already knew each other for years. They had a painful history together (about which their partners don't know a thing)and that made me think this holiday would change their feelings towards each other. But it all remained the same... 

Normally I read books like this in 2 or 3 days... This one took me a little longer and that's the sign I didn't like it that much. I couldn't connect with Chloe and Hugh because they were so rigid. I didn't want to know what was going to happen because I had the feeling I already knew it from the beginning on. I didn't want to continue the book because I couldn't see how a holiday of one week could keep me interested for 300 pages... 

I can't say something about the story itself. It was a good idea for a book, but the author could have used more twists and turns in this one. Make it a little more exciting. For example, I like characters with faults because that's more human. Chloe and Hugh had those faults, but they always were compensated or something... Just when I started to feel some sympathy for someone in the book, there happened something else that flattened them again. Maybe I'm just being difficult here, but this book was not what I expected it to be and bored me a little to much to be positive. (Love other books by Sophie Kinsella though!)