I love the theme, setting and the main character of this book. It’s just that I eventually lost the connection and interest as the story progressed.

A few of you might remember my past book reviews about Jane Green. Those few books gave me nothing but appreciation to her talent and writing style. I admire her talent of being able to write stories that deals with life and its accompanying issues. Along the way, she can unravel realizations and a little learning from the realistic characters. I was expecting the same caliber of reading experience with Jemima J. Unfortunately, I have to exclude this book from my list of favorites.


The story evolved on Jemima’s two major struggles; the weight loss journey and every girl’s dream of ending with Mr. Right. Jemima was successful in shedding out every inch of her accumulated fat. She became an entirely different person with her mere physical transformation. Unfortunately, her second struggle related a more complicated story.

Jemima Jones started as a very interesting read for me. The first paragraph can explain.

And yes, I’m affected with the first few sentences because THIS IS ME. I took this as a sign of connection and interest.

Contrary to my expectation, I developed a heightening disinterest. Despite of everything, I finished the book in the hope of encountering a compelling ending. The story had its own decent ending except that it was evidently predictable. Setting aside my disappointment, here a few good insights I gained from the book.

The book carried Jane Green’s trademark of sharing a thing or two about life. Jane Green emphasized the concept of inner beauty, intelligence and a well respected character. The physical attributes can provide an advantage to a limited extent. Green manifested the importance of investing on your inner self. At some point, I was convinced that the people who don’t surpass the society’s biased standards of being beautiful are the most blessed. Why? Their family and friends love them for who they are. They are loved because of their inner being. They are loved for who they really are and who are they not.

Green also manifested that being beautiful brings out its own frustration 

Other than this, I found no other significant and striking messages in this novel.

In the end, I'm giving the book 3 out of 5 stars. Jemima J still has that satisfactory story line. It's just that it didn't impress me well.

PS Hopefully Ricki will host another Literary Friday linky. :)