I won a copy of Holly's Inbox
from a giveaway on another blog. I had seen a nice review at Bookfoolery and Babble and I was excited to get this one. I actually started it pretty soon after receiving my copy. I read to about halfway, at which point the book was inadvertently spoiled for me at another blog. It took me a long time to pick it back up but eventually I did and was fairly happy with the outcome.Holly's Inbox is essentially a chicklit book told in email format. It's a big chunk of a book and looks a lot more intimidating than it actually is. Holly is a receptionist at a large financial institution and the book is pretty much everything about her job, love life, and family over the course of couple months. Being chicklit, a large portion of the book is about her love life which is fine with me. I like a little romance in my books, if you haven't noticed. The setup is really slow with a lot of new elements added in during the last small section, which felt rushed and like a total setup for the sequel. (If you'll recall, I disliked that about Twilight, too.) Pacing was off, but I suppose part of that could be attributed to the format.
The one thing that I really disliked about the book is that the author's pen name is Holly Denham, as is the main character. There is a letter to the reader at the beginning that is "from" Holly Denham, and pretends that this is a true story. My understanding is that it is not. This bothers me. A lot. It reminds me of when The Notebook
by Nicholas Sparks came out and everyone believed it was a true story only to find it was fiction and would be shelved as such. Unlike James Frey's A Million Little Pieces
which was billed as memoir and turned out to be not so true, but is still not shelved as fiction. In any case, I didn't like it.Have you read Holly's Inbox? Did you dislike the same things I did? How do you feel about the author writing as the character, including on the title page? When the sequel comes out do you plan to read it too? Have you read any other great books in email form? I'm pretty sure the only other one I've read is Meg Cabot's Every Boy's Got One
(My review is here.)Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham
Sourcebooks Casablanca
2009
665 pages
