Book Review: Where Have All The Boys Gone by Jenny Colgan

Title: Where Have All The Boys Gone

Author: Jenny Colgan

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date: August 1st, 2005

Pages: 340

Format: Paperback

Source: Borrowed

 

Synopsis (from Amazon): 

Where have all the men gone? Faced with 25, 000 more women than men in London, and gleeful media reports that it’s statistically more likely for single women to be murdered than get married, Katie is reached an all-time low. But all is not lost …
Another hilarious high-concept romantic comedy from Jenny Colgan.

While Katie’s glad it’s not a man’s world any more, she’d be quite pleased if there were more men in it – or at least single ones, anyway.

More likely to get murdered than married, according to gleeful media reports, Katie resigns herself to the fact there’s no sex in the city and heads for the hills – or the Scottish highlands, to be precise.

Despite the fact she’s never been a girl for wellies – and Fairlish is in the middle of nowhere – the tiny town does have one major draw: men. Lots of them.

But while Katie relishes the chance to do battle with armies of admirers, she’s not reckoned on going head to head with her grumpy new boss, Harry, shadowy developers intent on destroying the beautiful countryside and Mrs McClockerty, the least suitable hotelier since Norman Bates.

At least there’s the local eye-candy to distract her, including gorgeous newshound Iain. But he is at loggerheads with Harry, and Harry despises her. Life in the country might not be one big roll in the hay but can Katie ever turn her back on the delights of Fairlish and return to city life?

Review:

Browsing trough my local library’s shelf, an amazin and a bit funny book title cought my attention: Where Have All The Boys Gone?
With the adorable cover and the fact that it is written by Jenny Colgan, an author I want to check out for the longest time, I just had to borrow it.

The story follows three friends in their late twenties. One day, they were just minding their own girly buisness, when they saw an article in the newspaper which said that a single girl in London has a bigger chance to be murdered then to find herself a man.

I don’t think I have to tell you what girls’ reaction was. Already stressed out, they started to worry they’ll never find a decent man for themselves…

This book was one really good entertaiment. The story pulled me in and I was just having a great time reading it. I didn’t think about anything, I just enjoyed the ride.

Almost all the charaters in this book were likeable, although I didn’t feel attached to any of them.
There was one guy I didn’t particurarly like (Harry) because I found him to be too judgamental, but the world is full of people like him, which made me appreciate him as a character.
I don’t think that every fictional guy has to be swoon worthy and perfect, because life doesn’t work that way.

The writing style is really good. Colgan captured the atmosphere of a little Scottish town in such an amazing way (that was my favorite aspect of the story).
She also handled very well  an inner struggle of characters. Because of that, it was very easy to keep up with their process of thinking that lead them to make decisions they made.

This book is written over ten years ago and now when I read it, I want to check out some of Colgan’s new work to see how she developed as an author.

Overall, if you want to read a book just to occupy your mind, make you laugh on the way (I even cought myself laughing out loud at times) and make you forget about the world around you, I think this book is a good choice for you.