BOOK REVIEW: "What Men Want"

What Men Want
By Deborah Blumenthal
Red Dress Ink
Copyright 2006
Adult Fiction
3 Bookmarks
Spoiler Alert!

With a book title like What Men Want, of course I (as a woman) was curious. What do men want? I sort of thought the book would be a cute tale about some woman who finds out what men want. Instead, I found a book about a print journalist (columnist, actually) with a live-in boyfriend who is not quite right for her and a journalistic nemesis who only serves to cause her grief. Nothing about what men want at all, actually.

Meet Jenny George. With a boring name like that, I was not intrigued. Even the author thought it was a boring name and spent several paragraphs throughout the book commenting on the commonness of the name. And then, of course, is her nemesis Slaid Warren (MUCH better name for a character in a novel!) who continually calls to flirt with her in a weird, competitive sort of way.

When Jenny's boyfriend decides to trade her in a for a hotter model (literally), I sort of thought she would finally figure out the "what men want" part of the equation. Unfortunately, she just experiences a few ups and downs of the dumpee sort, then lands in the lap of Slaid Warren and that is about it. No mention of "what men want" at all! I assume the author was intending for us to simply believe that men want Jenny George, but I don't buy it.

While the misleading title was a bit of a disappointment (because, don't we all want to know what men want?), I did enjoy reading the book. Some funny scenes and witty banter. It was a cute story after all, although it did leave me a little empty in the end.