A Christmas Caroline

I ordered this for a friend who is a huge fan of Kyle Smith. She loved it! Follows the fanciful, irreverent tone of his 'Real Simple' articles.

Caroline is fashinanable, self aware and so shallow that it boggles the imagination. She is the queen of her own little universe, quick to judge, to scold and to cast off anyting and anyone that dares not meet her high, high standards. Boyfriends are cataloged and nicknamed, friends reduced to their abilities to help her or furthar her needs and she cannot imagine why her psychiatrist is fed up with Caroline's myopic view of the world around her. After all, Caroline learned these standards at the knee of her mother, the fabulous La, a world famous wedding dress designer. As acessory editor of Presents magazine (tag line, "the gifts you give yourself") Caroline has access to the best of everything ahead of the trend and no qualms about using her connections to aquire them for her own use. The approach of the Christmas season has Caroline in a funk. The holidays seem to unnesessarily divert the world's attention from her fabulousness. All that goodwill does not even touch Caroline when her mother tells her that the family Christmas (with her almost step-father..oh joy) will be held in Branson, Missouri of all places! Obviously, Branson isn't a place someone of her class should do Christmas, or anything else! Deciding to go to her office Christmas Eve to retrieve all her goodies from advertisers Caroline sets off a chain of events thst introduce her to the new managing editor of Presents after she "accidently" sets a coworker's sweater on fire. A chain of events that leave her fired and about to be plowed down by a speeding car as she mindlessly exits her office building. This is an entertaining twist of the Christmas Carol story and there are times, many times that made this reader shake her head in dismay. Will Caroline ever feel the glimmer of the Christmas spirit? Will she ever meet the man who measures up to that imagionary perfect man she has longed for since she first glimpsed the portrait in her mother's wedding salon? Will she become even a little less insufferable? Will any of these lessons sink into that perfectly coiffed head? With some unexpected twists and turns, A Christmas Caroline is a merry little Christmas romp.

In a high-fashion twist on the Dickens classic, the Scrooge in this case is Caroline--a gorgeous, aloof and completely self-absorbed Manhattanite obsessed with staying thin and clad in haute couture. When Caroline discovers that her assistant, dubbed Thing, has surpassed even her own size zero with clothing boasting tags with the impossible size of a -2, Caroline loses complete control and sets fire to the offensive apparel. Having reached an all time low, Caroline heads home to her empty apartment...to immediately fall into a depressed sleep. Once in Dreamland, she is accosted by her equally obnoxious (and now departed) roommate Carly. Once kindred spirits, Carly warns of an appallingly oppressive afterlife if Caroline doesn't change her ways....and Carly is just the beginning of the spirits that visit Caroline on Christmas Eve in an effort to save her designer-clad soul. Incredibly witty, this is a tale that will have readers everywhere laughing out loud...especially appreciated by women obessed with their appearance and devoted to designer duds....and by men with an extraordinary fashion sense (like the author). 4 stars only, however, due to the woefully abrupt ending. DYB

This is a send-up of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Dickens fans will spot the many references to Dickens' canon, some more obvious than others (Tiny Tim, Madame Dufarge, Pip, Miss Havisham, etc.). The protagonist, Caroline Havisham, is a self-absorbed fashion editor who manages to alienate everyone she meets, even as they fawn over her beauty. But three visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future make her rethink her curmudgeonly ways. The Ghost of Christmas Future is particularly amusing. The book is a little too preoccupied with fashion, and the repetition of brand names may cause some readers to yawn. But the writing is funny and smart enough that it doesn't matter. And Smith seems to have genuine affection for his characters, even the snotty Caroline. I also like the idea of re-casting A Christmas Carol with a female Scrooge, as he's done here, even if the female voice is not always convincing. This is a lighter work than his prior novel, Love Monkey, but they're both enjoyable, and if you liked that, you'd probably like this.

As an American boy growing up in rural France, I longed to go back to Manhattan just once and ice skate in Rockefeller Center and to meet Santa at the famous Macy's Herald Square. Quick jump cut to 2006 and picking up movie critic Kyle Smith's new bestseller off of the "sleeper" pile at my local independent bookstore. Well, you don't have to be Frank Capra to know that underneath Smith's superficial chic and gloss beats a heart as sentimental and hotblooded as everyone's favorite, the boy Tiny Tim. From the outside, Caroline's world seems like a dream come true, but if those onlookers only knew, that she was living on borrowed scraps, for her shopaholic ways had caught up with her, that and her weakness for 900 dollar shoes. Even with the freebies of her magazine lifestyle, she's hard put to come up with the rent and cabfare. As Yeats said, it's hard work being beautiful, and Caroline has let her soul shrivel up like a raisin in the sun (WASP version) just trying to be au courant. Her problem basically is living with a mother who's larger than life, "La,: everyone calls her, "La" (pronounced "lei") Havisham, sort of like Meryl Streep in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA but much more heartless. But Caroline is no naive Anne Hathaway, no, she's nearly as calculating and narcissistic as her own mother, and that's saying something. Peering through the narrative trappings, like the ghost of Christmas Past, we can spy the dim outlines of Dickens' immortal CHRISTMAS CAROL, the classic tale of a wasted life renewed by an awakening social conscience. In the course of just one day Caroline will discover that every core value she has ever had, will be turned upside down by a relentless fate. She will discover that she hss been watched over from birth by the most unlikely guardian angel! Your heart will do Jimmy Choo flip flops when you realize, along with Caroline, that she does have a heart, and it's in mint condition because it's been in a box and never been used. If you are Dickens-minded, Kyle Smith has another treat for you. Every character has a name taken from one or more of Dickens' beloved gallery of heroes and villains, often used here in biting, sarcastic or amusing ways, sometimes in memory of a beautiful heartbreak. The UPS guy Caroline can't stand is called Barkis; Summer Estherson, Caroline's longsuffering therapist with the personality of "a human throw pillow," is Smith's nod to Esther Summerson, the "little mother" of Dickens' novel BLEAK HOUSE. Reading this book, there's a game on every page, they could call it, "Dickens-doku." It is bound to be a Christmas classic, both for the casual reader and the Prada wearing layabout. He wrote LOVE MONKEY but Caroline will be the "gorilla your dreams."