17 February 2012

Book P(Review): The Lion Is In by Delia Ephron

My sales rep sent me an ARC of The Lion Is In by Delia Ephron, and though I don't think I would have otherwise picked it up on my own, I'm surprised by how enjoyable it is. Two runaway women meet a third runaway woman and together they stumble upon a bar in the middle of nowhere. And oh, yeah--there's a lion, which means things are gonna get interesting.

This book turned out to be light and fun and the perfect palate cleanser after reading a stream of extremely dark (but excellent) novels back to back. This is a story where mostly nothing bad happens and things come out right in the end. You've got to enjoy a book that throws together Marcel the Lion, the hapless driver's ed instructor, a jewel thief, the downtrodden bartender who longs for the love of a good woman, a former Miss North Carolina, and a moronic preacher whose ideals make him the perfect 21st century counterpart to Jane Austen's Mr. Collins. The fact that Marcel becomes  a combination of guru/higher power/shrink for two of the women is pure bonus.

I recommend this book for anybody who is looking for something on the lighter side. I have the strong feeling that the author might turn this chic lit into a chick flick. Think "Thelma & Louise" meets anything by Billie Letts, minus the cliffside-plunge-to-the-death, and you'll have the right idea.

This was not a book that I ruined with dog-ears to mark my favorite passages, but here's one that gives a flavor of the book:

"Rita thinks and it comes back to her what she sensed when she saw him [Marcel the Lion]. She feels it again, something stirring inside her. Barely there, yet for most people it would be unmistakable: a sense of beginning. Rita, however, is so unfamiliar with adventure or possibility that she can't tell the difference between something auspicious and a stomachache (24)."

NB: This book will be published in May by Blue Rider Press, a division of Penguin. It also happens to qualify for my ninth book read for the New Author Challenge, sponsored by Literary Escapism.

4 comments:

  1. Hmm, sounds kind of fun! I'm adding to my TBR for the summer -- or a late March need-to-perk-me-up read. Sometimes I want something happy to wallow in!

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  2. I would probably read this for the lion if I stumbled across it somewhere :)

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  3. I trust in this book purely because it's by Nora Ephron's sister and I believe she co-wrote some (a lot) of movies with her. AND also because you said its good, of course :)

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  4. This sounds fun and I could also use a nice light read after reading some heavier stuff lately.

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