Michelle Cunnah, Call Waiting

Call Waiting

Michelle Cunnah

Avon, Aug 2004, $10.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0060560363

Having just turned thirty-one, Emma Taylor contentedly reflects back on her last year following the disasters just prior to her thirtieth birthday. Though not her first love (Led Zeppelin is first) she has been with Jack Brown for eight months and has reconciled with her underweight body accentuated by her 32AA boobs. She feels positive about her promotion to Junior Account Manager among the rest of achievements that her list includes. Emma draws up her list of goals for the upcoming year starting with tightening the covalently-bonded relationship with Jack by moving in together and becoming engaged to marry perhaps next spring.

Jack fails to give Emma the engagement ring she finds in his drawer. She panics as her insecurities about being a skinny chick surface, worrying whether Jack has a commitment phobia or is in love with C-cup Claire. Unable to turn to her friend Rachel as she knows her advice would be ionic bonding, Emma decides to perform a social act to prove to her beloved that she is not just a bimbo he keeps on CALL WAITING. She joins HUSSI, Hoboken United Sisters Suffragette Institution, but will that send Jack on bended knee with a proposal or is he hanging up on her?

Though the constant lists can become irritating, chick lit fans will appreciate Emma's second lament following her 32AA woes. The storyline focuses on the protagonist's doubts in her relationship with Jack, who seems oblivious to her fears and needs. Emma is a wonderful lead even if readers will wonder how Jack and her best friend Rachel remain relatively patient with this insecure soul, whose strategic lists help her overcome her self-bemoaning woes.

Harriet Klausner