MISC REVIEW: Life According to Lubka - Laurie Graham

BOOK BLURB:

Pittsburgh was too small for Beryl Wexler. Barely out of high school, she changed her name to Buzz and set off for the bright lights of London. She never looked back. Now she's at the top of her game in the music PR business, looking after the coolest groups on the planet. And for a woman who was forty-two last birthday she certainly keeps up the pace. But her life is about to change. Some twenty-year-old has been given the new Japanese girl band predicted to go stellar, and Buzz is being sidelined. Instead, Buzz gets to tour with the Gorni Grannies, Bulgarian singers of a certain age. These ladies may not be the tantrum-throwing celebs Buzz is used to, but they present other challenges. How to stop Lubka straining yogurt through her knee highs? How to dissuade Kichka from stealing everything not nailed to the floor? Fuelled by copious shots of home-brewed plum rakia, Buzz and Lubka address life's ups and down, until the world tilts and a different future beckons.


REVIEW:

Titles that have been reviewed by the broadsheets tend to scare me to be honest. I always worry that they may be a bit too “high brow” for me. I enjoy a book that helps me escape from the world, I enjoy titles that give me something different to the norm, but most of all I enjoy a title with a unique voice.

What you get here certainly was unique, but it was unique for a lot of bad reasons, firstly the slaughtering of the English language which whilst the author may have found funny really didn’t do anything for the reader as it didn’t seem to fit the people concerned. Then the there was no real likeability factor to any of the cast as I really couldn’t wait to see the back of them. The best part of this piece was, to be honest, the book blurb which did a terrific job of selling the novel in the first place. I’d advise anyone to avoid this title with the only reason to read it being to learn what not to do. For that reason it would be a great learning curve for would be authors but other than that, there is nothing compelling here enough for anyone to even part with their cash.