Complete with the standard plucky heroine, date-from-hell scenes and gorgeous gay best friend, "Me Times Three" is the typical chick-flick in book form. Think Bridget Jones' Diary, with a move from London to New York and Bridget replaced with her Jewish alter ego.
Boys, unless you cried at Titanic or enjoy Freddie Prinze Jr. movies, this one's not for you.
Author Alex Witchel, style reporter for The New York Times, has created the perfect combination of Hollywood melodrama and realistic womanly angst. While most of us will never have a fling with an outrageously sexy doctor while writing a story on the hottest actress in the country - in Acapulco, nonetheless - most of us have had some sort of messy relationship woes. You know, the lock-ourselves-in-the-house-and-eat-ice-cream traumas of the heart.
No, heroine Sandra Berlin is not an average lady, but she is one we can admire and in many cases, one to whom we can relate. Her antics provide delightful situations and her interactions with her beautiful and rich best friend Paul - who is basically a slightly younger version of George from "My Best Friend's Wedding," designer suits and all - will have anyone wishing for pearls of wisdom, as well as shopping advice, from a gay man.
Witchel has characterization down, but her plot development and creativity are noticeably lacking. Berlin is struggling with her career at chic fashion magazine Jolie! but is blissfully optimistic about her future, which is to be the yuppie wife of her yuppie high school sweetheart, Bucky, and to produce little private school munchkins for him to take golfing. Possibly knit doilies. Alas, all her ambitions for the perfectly shallow and meaningless life come crashing when she meets Bucky's other fiancÇe, who is essentially surfer-girl Barbie. After being informed that Bucky is planning to marry not two, but three girls simultaneously, she dumps him - Hallelujah! A man named Bucky should never be trusted. But Berlin finds that re-entering the dating scene after a nine-year sabbatical is not as exciting or rewarding as she had hoped.
The reader is next treated to her pitiful, yet hilarious, adventures with an eclectic sampling of New York's men. We are all the while aware of the presence of Mr. Right, yummy art writer Mark, who is crazy about our heroine and is perfect for her in every way. Sound familiar?
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She bumbles along oblivious to the promising relationship handed her on a silver platter and, in truth, is too distracted with her hectic social life to pay much heed.
The book takes a somber turn, however, when Paul's much foreshadowed illness becomes serious. Witchel succeeds in creating a few highly emotional and heart-rending scenes, which are unexpected in this particular breed of fiction, but add depth and sincerity to an otherwise lighthearted story.
Despite "Me Times Three's" formulaic plot and the "Sex and the City"-esque "single woman in New York" mood, Witchel adds her own quirky details and manages to give the book an original flair. Berlin's children's stories are intermittently thrown in among the havoc and they are delightfully simplistic versions of her own toils that are both humorous and thought provoking.
Trust Hollywood to screw it all up. Miramax is already busy with the movie version and for our Jewish heroine, who is described as pretty, but not beautiful, sometimes very insecure about her weight and certainly not tall, they have assigned Gwyneth Paltrow.
No doubt she'll dye her hair and then - poof! - we'll have a perfect Sandra Berlin.
The movie version may disappoint, but in book form "Me Times Three" is witty and fun, with plenty of laughs to fill in any gaps left by the plot.
