Reviewer: Amy Lignor
Title: The Ultimatum
Author: Dan Graziano
Publisher: AVON/an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0-06-084797-5
Release Date: July 2007
Genre/Sub-genre: Chick-Lit/Humor
Year/Setting: Present/New Jersey
Overall Rating: 1.0
Sexual Content Rating: Subtle
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: Mild
Violent Content Rating: None
Dan's Website:
www.dangraziano.com
Henry is a successful (not yet famous) novelist who has been dating his live-in love, Layla, for the past six years. In one week friends of theirs are getting hitched, and Layla, with the help of her girl friends and her biological clock suddenly ticking out of control, produces an ultimatum for Henry: Propose before the bride throws her bouquet or I’m outta’ here.
For me, this was a difficult book. Don’t get me wrong, the writer does not write badly. He gets his point across quite well but, unfortunately, the female/male cliches’ are dull and do nothing to enhance the plotline. Jake is Henry’s despondent divorced brother whose wife had the best lawyer during the split so she got it all. His golf buddy, Big John, has had five wives and each was the requisite Hollywood movie character. (i.e. hooker, mother of kids, crone, etc.). All five had a "problem," although it seems the problem they shared was Big John, whose main goal in life seems to be playing on the golf course and drinking beer. (I would love to say these scenes are funny - Animal House"esque" – but they come across as bitter and unamusing. Rounding out the friends of the would-be "groom" is Pete. Pete is a happily-married adult with the mentality of a four-year-old. He loves to eat at Friendly’s, get the crayons, color his menu, and finish the Word Jumble before offering advice.
The women get no better. Layla is a lawyer and a twit throughout most of the book. This is a professional woman who worries about fixing herself up and keeping herself in shape for a guy who basically, through the week he has to decide on whether or not to propose, comes home drunk, won’t offer her an answer, etc. But she loves him, proving once again that love is deaf, blind and, most assuredly, dumb. Her friends are Gloria, a "tough-talking" chick with no regard for men; and Susan, a sensitive, simpering soul that probably wants nothing more than world peace.
I have to say, I don’t consider myself a die-hard feminist. I love chivalry, gallant men who pull out chairs and actually speak to the person sitting opposite them at dinner. I realize what the author was going for here but the characters remain one-dimensional to the very last line. Dear Readers, Mr. Darcy was a real jerk, too, but at least at the end, you cared about him.
Amy
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