Title:          Greetings from Jamaica,Wish you were Queer
Author:         Mari SanGiovanni
ISBN-10:        1-932859-30-6
Publisher:      Bywater Books
Released:       March 2007
Pages:          256
Category:       Romantic Comedy

Michelle say's - Buy this book now and read it, it will rid you of all your wintery cobwebs. I flipped though the pages trying to select an excerpt for the book review. This tended to be more difficult than anticipated as I immediately fell into the easy prose and familiarity of the zany escpades of an Italian family on their adventures on a Jamaica vacation.

Greetings from Jamaica tells the story of Marie, stuck in a loveless relationship with a cheating girlfriend, mix in a zany, somewhat eccentric Italian family (large as it includes aunts and uncles). Marie's grandmother, who never approved of Marie's unconventional relationships, dies and leaves her sole heir to her huge fortune. This is a catalyst for Marie to break free from the shackles of her relationship and pursue her dream of becoming a screen writer in LA. With screen play in hand she stalks Lorn Elaine, the actress she has chosen to play her lead character in the screen play. After some mishaps in LA, she decides to take her entire on vacation to Jamaica only to discover Lorn and her mother are also vacationing on the island.

An excerpt from Greeting from Jamaica, Wish you were Queer - Page 198:
""HOLY SHIT!" I yelled, too entangled in the walker to be able to reach for her in time. She hit the water with a giant typhoon slap against her ample ass. It was the loudest water cannonball I had ever heard, and that, along with her shriek, had gotten the attention of several more guests. People gasped and shouted at the sight of an elderly person's walker tumbling away from the pool. In the water around Aggie bloomed a bright, floral island, her housecoat billowing wide, appearing as if a gay paratrooper has miscalculated a landing in the pool. My aunt unintentionally calmed the crowd by her somewhat graceful dogpaddling, despite the fact that she was blinded by her black helmet of hair."

Mari Sangiovanni is a talented Comedic Writer. Her debut novel is smart, hilariously funny and well paced with a cast of memorable characters. What makes this book great is the writers ability to create side-splitting situations for her characters. The momentum and humour are successfully kept from cover to cover. As with the except from page 198, the author is a great story teller and has the ability to show the reader the situation as if they were there in Jamaica, poolside watching the antics. I quite agree with the Author in her interview with Michelle from Ultra-Violet that her story is unique and fresh as this plot has not been thrashed out a million times before. 

A book for the bookshelf, as you will definitely be reading this one more than once!!! It deserves it's 5/5 for being highly entertaining.

I look forward to the Author's new novel Liddy-Jean Marketing Queen, to be released later this year.

Rating:        5/5

Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer

Price: R140.00 (incl. 14 % VAT)

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