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Getting Even (2014)

by Sarah Rayner(Favorite Author)

3.47 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1250042119 (ISBN13: 9781250042118)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

St. Martin's Griffin

review 1: Sarah Rayner's GETTING EVEN was not exactly what I had expected after reading the book description. Instead of a witty, snappy tale of revenge, the book dragged. The first third of the book was very slow paced and repetitive and would have been more effective had it been summarized into one paragraph, plugged into some place in the story where things got more interesting. Don't know exactly where that would be though. This book came off as dull to me, though I'm sure some read who like very (painfully) slow-paced stories might enjoy it.
review 2: I’ll start by pointing out that this is not a ‘good read’. It is not an inspiring work of literally fiction that will leave you wanting more and shouting from the rooftops for all to share in its glory. The rea... moreson I chose to read this book however, is that having read a Sarah Rayner novel before (Another Night, Another Day), I knew that it was be the perfect buffer between reading Howard Jacobson’s ‘J’ and Martin Amis’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ – two recent books focussing mostly around the effects of a Holocaust. Had I read them back to back, I think they would have broken me.‘Getting Even’ does exactly what is says on the tin. Two best friends who have studied and worked together for 11 years reach a point of seniority in the advertising career that they have built together where one must excel to the highest point at their agency and there isn’t room for two. Mix in unhappy marriages, affairs, secret office romances and lots of mutual acquaintances, there are endless possibilities for how one can betray the other.The premise and the characters are simple: Orianna is pretty, sweet, excellent at her job and liked by everyone; Ivy is beautiful, sassy, highly strung, excellent at her job but tends to rub people up the wrong way. As a partnership they work really well together but once Orianna receives an offer she can’t refuse to take on the agencies role of creative director, all of Ivy’s cold and negative traits come to the fore. You can imagine how the story develops – a bitch emerges that you WOULD NOT want to mess with.Rayner writes in a gossipy and chatty way which makes the book incredibly easy to read – I whizzed through it in two sittings. But something really irritating that I noticed with this book, probably because I was set in the city rather than in Brighton like ‘Another Night, Another Day’ was the mention of vacations and subway stations. I’m not sure whether this particular book was targeted at a US market but it seemed quite strange for a British author to use these words repeatedly and for them not to have been picked up by an editor.The ending was quite satisfactory – nobody gets their just desserts as such but it does leave you wondering if this book is in any way autobiographical?I can’t say I gained much from reading this book other than some light relief between two literary heavy hitters so it’s earned a 2.5/5 and I would recommend to women who just need a quick read to take their minds off of something. less

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