Angels: A Novel

I read Marian Keyes books for their setting in Ireland. This one ends up in LA! Very disappointed!

Angels is just the kind of book any girl would pick up and read lying at the beach sipping a cocktail. Which is exactly what Maggie does when she comes to LA - that is, if she isn't worrying about being too fat, pitching scripts to movie producers or thinking about sex. The book gives a humourous insight into life in LA, the writing style is witty and fast. Some passages about how Maggie lost her baby in her "life before" and her relationship broke up are rather long at times, but the book is still great. It's not high literature - but it sure is fun!

I have read all of Marian Keyes books about the Walsh sisters but for some reason had missed this one until now. Margaret is known to her sisters as Lickarse, because she was always so well behaved (both growing up and now), dresses impeccably, works hard, has the perfect marriage and is the apple of her parents eye, having "never given them a moments trouble". But meeting Margaret from the inside, we find she likes to be known as Maggie, has huge self doubt and her marriage to Garv has hit the skids. When she finally decides to leave him she gets invitations from people and sisters around the world to go and spend some time with them, but chooses to go to LA to stay with her screenwriter friend from childhood, Emily. From there we get the most amazing view of LA from an outsiders view, the obsession with beauty, movies and making it in a tough, tough town. Maggie has the time of her life, goes a little wild, then has to confront herself with the question, "Is this really me?" I thought this book was magnificent and recommend it unreservedly!

I just finished this book and enjoyed every page. It is funny yet touching at the same time. It is nice to see the "bad girl" side of a "good girl".

Yep, Marian Keyes is back with her third novel of the wonderfully semi-function Irish family - the Walshes. In Angels, the steady Walsh daughter, Maggie, breaks free of her marriage, travels to Los Angeles and proceeds to try to dredge up the Wild Girl she always thought she was. Keyes doesn't disappoint with this story - once again their is great good humour, underlined with the truth which is slowly drawn out during the story as Maggie realises just what has been going on her life - and we realise that her steady life wasn't quite what it seemed at the beginning.I love these Walsh stories - well just about anything by Keyes anyway. There are always depths to her stories and her characters which when revealed explain a lot more about the characters and motivations and slowly draw us deeper into the emotional world they inhabit.Maggie has been married for nine years when her husband Paul (who everyone calls Garv) starts having an affair. So Maggie slinks home to Dublin, and then off to Los Angeles to be with her best friend, Emily - who is struggling to write a script and sell it in LA. The nuttiness of the LA movie-making scene is interspersed with some really down to earth characters - and lessons in life which don't whack you in the face.Lovely and readable story - Keyes has to be one of my favourite authors and a must read.

Rita Rudner is quoted as having said "In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk."Maggie Walsh is known to her family and friends as plain vanilla yogurt. At room temperature, no less. Of the five Walsh sisters she is the only well-behaved one (as far as people know). Having married her first boyfriend and landed a paralegal job that was "as glamorous as a cold sore," she is known to be the steady, dull one. So it comes as a great shock when she leaves her husband of nine years, loses her job, and takes off from Ireland for Los Angeles to stay with her screenwriter friend Emily. It isn't long before she discovers that culture shock is the least of her problems in the land of dissolving marriages, movie extras, plastic surgery, and casual sex.Angels is a book full of joy and sadness, artistry and humor. There is a story underneath a story underneath a story here, and Marian Keyes works simultaneously both forward and backward from the break-up to lead the reader to the story's surprising conclusion. I read it, laughing out loud in parts, and thoroughly enjoyed what I thought was a well-written light read. But the last third of the book sandbagged me with its unexpected depths. By the end it becomes clear that if Maggie Walsh is vanilla yogurt, it is yogurt with raspberries buried underneath the surface. One last thought: this book must have been fun to write, because it sure was a blast to read. Definitely worth 5 s tars.