Pocket, $6.99, ISBN 0-7434-6511-3
Contemporary Fiction, 2003 (Reissue)

I have so much hope for this “Unhappy Me and My Three Equally Unhappy Friends” book when three of them accidentally kill the fourth woman’s boyfriend and end up pushing him and his car into the lake. The three women, Dixie, Gretchen, and Pamela along with Mary Sue go way back when they were ugly kids. Now they are miserable gits. Sometimes life takes a wrong turn and we get run down by a bus.

Mary Sue is undergoing chemotherapy. Her husband ditched her and her new boyfriend almost did, until her friends helped him leave Mary Sue permanently via a quick fall down the stairs and a broken neck. Oops. Dixie is having an affair with a married man. Pamela is married to Mr Wrong, miserable as hell, and loving every minute of it. Gretchen is on a dating service but she hates all men because all men are cheating jerks – just look at the one Dixie is sleeping with, the one she got dumped by, and the one Mary Sue got dumped by too. And now they have an accidental death to contend with. Oh, and don’t forget the primrose pills, ladies, a certain M-E-N-O-P-A-U-S-E is calling.

The author does an impressive job cataloguing all the woes and moans and groans of these ladies, but seriously, I have to wonder why should I even care about these people. Life sucks? All men are bastards? Well, tell me about it. Been there, opened the T-shirt shop, got over it, and moved on with life. Is Ms Wall asking me to show my membership card? There’s nothing in this story that that ever-popular chick lit thing, getting drunk and dancing and singing to I Will Survive can’t fix. Failing that, there’s always Thelma & Louise.

Derivative women’s problems in a derivative women’s fiction all lead to derivative morality tale about never trusting anything with a penis. The Girlfriends Club is seriously in need of a facelift.