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Summary: laughing and crying all in one book
Review: I loved this book!!! I found that Lisa was very comical and I absolutely fell in love with Dodie. When reading a book I think its important to relate with the main character and it is so easy to relate to Lisa and her family. There were many times when I would laugh out loud at Rita Ciresis comical references, I can't say enough about this book!!! I am very eager to read the rest of her work.
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Summary: Hilariously funny and irresistibly sexy!
Review: I have heard that Rita Ciseri is this era's Jane Austen. She writes books that are both romantic and funny. Well, I don't know if she has what it takes to become this era's Jane Austen, but she has written a very funny and romantic book. Lisa Diodetto's mother wants her to be married. She is constantly reminded that time is of the essence. But Lisa couldn't be happier living a single life, that is until she meets Eben Strauss -- a straight-laced Jewish man who happens to be Lisa's boss at a pharmaceutical firm. Lisa, whose Italian family is Catholic, is faced with a dilemma. Will her family approve of the relationship? Also, she has kept secrets from her mother, like the abortion she had years ago. There are some incredibly funny and sexy moments in this novel. This novel is extremely well written and emotional. Ciseri has a way with words. And she has indeed written a beautiful love story that captured me. I have only one objection: the fact that there are too many subplots. It was confusing and seemed misguided at times. But other than that, this book is great. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Disappointing
Review: I first picked up this book at a book store in the mall and started skimming through it there. It kept my interest well enough so I went home and bought it from amazon. I plunged in head first (eyes first?) when it arrived hoping the rest of the book would be as captivating as the first chapter. It wasn't. The book is inconsistant, both with it's characters and it's time frame. It's supposed to be set in 1985 but there are too many 90's overtures and this makes the story line confusing. The author is trying too hard to be "PC" when writing about a time when being "PC" had just started. Read with a notepad in hand - you'll need it to keep everything straight.
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Summary: A great escape...
Review: A thouroughly entertaining story! The main character, Lisa Diodetto, may be a bit of a crude and vulgar girl but it was refreshing to read something that was written in a realistic voice. I had to admit to myself that I shared many of her thoughts and emotions and truly found a friend in Lisa Diodetto. This is a great book for anyone who wants to escape with a light, easy read that has a satisfying and happy ending.
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Summary: A Totally Authentic Italian American Heroine
Review: If you think this book exaggerates the Italian American experience, take it from one with a similar background, that it doesn't. Alternately comic and heartfelt, this novel covers a little bit of everything in the life of a woman editor for a pharmaceutical company looking for romance, at the urging of her worried mother, and finding it with her boss! Only problem is that he's by the book and very worried about sexual harassment claims and mixing business with pleasure. Turns out she's also writing a novel on company time which is going to create quite a conflict with Mr. By The Book. What a find and keeper this book was for me!
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Summary: Captivating
Review: This book, while not the best-written book I have read lately, caught my attention and held it. The style makes the book, rather than the characters, which alternate between being average and downright dislikable at times. But I kept turning the pages because I needed to know what happened next in the relationships (family and romantic). The date of the novel (1985) gives a heartbreaking flashback of all of the things we didn't know (or thought we knew) about HIV and AIDS. And the family could have been almost any neighborhood family I know.
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Summary: SO much better than I expected....
Review: I picked up this book because I needed a light, fluffy, 'pink' read. It was quite entertaining, as promised, but also alot more compelling and moving than I ever expected. Touches on alot of very interesting subplots. Slightly unbelievable? Perhaps. But it really worked for me, and I'm not catholic or italian. I definitely recommend this book.
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Summary: Believability Problems
Review: I think this book was an enjoyable light read, I didn't haveany problem finishing it, but I just didn't find the main character,Rita, very sympathetic or consistent or believable in character. Also, I know this world, having worked in pharmaceutical consulting, etc., and there were some jarring things about Rita that didn't seem right to me. Maybe I'm out of it, but I didn't think IV drug use was that common amongst professional, highly educated people--and my circle of friends is hardly conservative, so maybe that was some NY trend in the 1980s or something, but that was the most unbelievable thing to me--pot, cocaine, speed, I could buy, but this? The rest of the setting seems a little dated now, especially attitudes and surprises about AIDs, but it didn't seem false to me. The male character was supposed to be a pompous ass, but he seemed very nice and interesting to me, in fact, that was the main problem I had with the book-- these people are presented as being madly in love almost immediately with no obvious motivation or reason for the attraction, I just couldn't see why he would have been so interested in her. In sum, it was okay for a summer beach book, but with perfect hindsight....and I'm not tempted to read her other books.
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Summary: It helps to have been raised Catholic
Review: You don't have to have been raised Catholic to enjoy Rita Ciresi's Pink Slip, but it helps. The story of Lisa with the unpronounceable Italian last name and the impossible family falling implausibly in love with Strauss, the stiff, quiet Jewish vice-president of her company gets you involved right off the bat. The wonderful treatment of Lisa's beloved gay cousin is some of the best writing in an awfully good book. I found it to be clean, crisp writing, and stayed with it happily to the end. The book moves in a leisurely, meditative fashion, making everything that happens seem inevitable, and yet the book doesn't feel forced or over-plotted. What more is there to say? I liked it a lot and can't wait for her next one.
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Summary: I loved this book but........
Review: I agree with other readers that this book started slowly. After I got past the first few chapters I was hooked and could not put it down all weekend. I hate to be picky but...the author apparently teaches at a university and has writtten another book. That is why I was bothered by her misuse (3 times) of the phrase "honed in". It is "home in". To hone means to sharpen, the term is "home in" like a homing pigeon. Things like this really bother me. Also, in the beginning of the book she makes reference to when the "son of Sam" was arrested and says that "his parent's dog's barking" - it was a neighbor's dog. Also the character mentions that her mother was surprised that son of Sam, David Berkowitz, was a Jewish serial killer - highly unusual. Actually David B. was adopted and is not Jewish, he is Italian. On the whole though it was a good book and very moving at the end.
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