The Botox Diaries: A Novel
From Publishers Weekly
Moneyed suburban moms are the belles of this midlife romantic comedy. Divorced Jess Taylor saw the back side of 40 a few years ago, but doesn’t much care. She’s got her bubbly 10-year-old daughter, Jen, a house in New York City suburb Pine Hills and a fulfilling job at the Arts Council for Kids. She’s also got a similarly equipped best friend—except Lucy has a glamorous TV producer gig, loving husband Dan, and now, suddenly, a famous TV show host lover. Jess is appalled, but secretly she wonders if she’s not missing out. Enter Jacques, long-ago ex-husband, who’s just as unsuitable—and sexy—as ever. Sprightly Jen is determined to get her mom hitched, up to and including booking her on a reality da…
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It’s no secret that most chick-lit books are for the twentysomething crowd — a few are for thirtysomethings. But Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger aim a bit higher in “The Botox Diaries,” an entertaining but flawed look at the lives of New York’s fortysomething mothers and wives.
Single mom Jessica Taylor is trying to keep up with the deranged supermoms, while her flighty producer pal Lucy fixes her up on disastrous dates with horny plastic surgeons. And then Jessica realizes that Lucy is cheating on her lovable husband Dan, with a boorish TV host. Now Jessica is stuck between her two friends, as Lucy takes resort trips and tantric sex lessons with her new lover. What makes it even worse is that Lucy’s “what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him” attitude is exactly like that of Jessica’s ex-husband, Jacques.
Coincidentally, Jacques then reappears in Jessica’s life, and seems to be trying to win her back. She allows herself to be swept along, but wonders what it is really up — and if Jacques can learn to be faithful. Between reluctantly dating a gay surfer and attending a Botox party, Jessica struggles to fix both her own life and Lucy’s disintegrating marriage.
Few books take a look at the female midlife crisis — let’s face it, women can panic as easily as men about turning forty. Even so, it’s a bit hard not to cringe as Lucy blithely cheats on her husband, assuming that her side nookie won’t be uncovered. At one point, the wit falls away in favor of drama, when it looks like Lucy’s marriage is over forever.
But the book is about more than just midlife crises — Kaplan and Schnurnberger also look at experienced romance, aging (and Botox), motherhood, and the pressure to keep up with deranged supermoms. Their style is witty and detailed, although the plot tends to meander. However, they have a witty, literate edge to their writing, without seeming to name-drop. Jessica’s description of Chekhov as a Russian “Sex and the City” is hilarious.
Jessica is the “au naturel” one — she’s very unself-conscious and down to earth. She’s a little too passive, however — why couldn’t she tip Dan off anonymously? Lucy is a stereotype of the shallow, overmoneyed woman, and Jacques a stereotype of the faithless French lover. Sadly, the book falls into the old chick-lit trap of providing a convenient love interest for Jessica, though they have zero chemistry and he appears less often than the Gen-X gay surfer.
An awkward love story mars this story of love, motherhood, infidelity and botulism. But “The Botox Diaries” is still an entertaining read, especially for the forty-plus set — really, aren’t you sick of all chick-lit heroines being the same age?