School of Fortune

Authors: Amanda Brown and Janice Weber
Pages: 342
Published: 2007
Short and Sweet Review: meh
First Line: "The elastic on Wyeth McCoy's sleep mask snapped just as his nightmare reached a horrific climax."


Synopsis: Pippa Walker is part of one of Texas' biggest and richest families. When she and her boyfriend decide to get married Pippa's controlling mother takes hold of the wedding day reigns and plans a Texas sized wedding to showcase her daughter. We're talking mega menus, gondolas flown in from Venice and 10 bridesmaids that had to try out to be in the wedding!


But when Pippa learns about a secret that her fiance has been keeping she bolts from her own wedding resulting in her parents disinheriting her. Add to the fact that her beloved grandfather dies at the wedding and Pippa is left penniless and with no family. In his will, her grandfather said that if Pippa were to graduate from a school she could inherit his huge estate. Not a scholar by far, Pippa attempts several different schools, from traffic to match-making to circus school, in order to complete her grandfather's requirement.


My Thoughts: Even though I picked up this book on one of the Chapters cheap tables I had fairly high hopes for the book. Co-written by the author of the "Legally Blonde" series I figured it would be an off-beat, humourous read. Weeeell, not so much. While it did have the right premise for a quirky read it just didn't reach it's potential in my opinion.

Some of the subplots seemed disjointed and forced. Some odd circus school in the middle of no where? Really? Many of the subplots didn't seem to flow together and it felt like they were put into the main storyline just so the authors could have Pippa say a good one-liner (which, in the end, wasn't very good either).

As for the characters they were .... ok. Pippa definitely didn't have the brains or the sass that Elle (from Legally Blonde fame) had that made her a likeable character. I skimmed through the last third of the book waiting for some big 'a-ha' moment which sadly never happened.


My Rating: 2.5/5 stars