Why Not?
Shari Low
Downtown, Nov 2004, $13.00, 352 pp.
ISBN: 074348312X

In London (not Minot), Jess Latham believes strongly that career and friends take precedent over men and marriage. However, as her three closest friends become married and have children, she wonders if her ambitions are causing her to miss some of the finer aspects of maleness. She has an affair with her boss, but loses her job when Mike "The Reporter" Chapman exposes her tryst in the tabloids.

Jess continues her slide downhill when she has sex with Mike and becomes pregnant. As shoe plots vengeance on all things masculine with the help of her strategic friends Carly, Kate, Carol, and Stacey, she wonders if she wants Mike permanently in her life just like her mates have done with their men.

WHY NOT? is a humorous London swings romp that. like the five musketeers. takes no prisoners. Jess is a terrific lead protagonist as she struggles with how far she has fallen just because of an affair while her tryst partner blithely goes on like nothing happened. Though the four friends never stand out with individual traits except in terms of their spouses and children, chick lit readers will agree with Shari Low WHY NOT this amusing tale.

Harriet Klausner