What If?: The perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy from Shari Low

I was SO late getting up this morning having read this book to the very end in bed last night, giggling like mad and trying so very hard not to laugh out loud and waken my husband! Carly Cooper realises that she's thirty, single, and hates her job. She set out after school to travel and worked in some wonderful locations, almost tying the knot no less than six times but never quite making it to the alter. With the new millennium creeping closer, she decides to revisit with each of them which, in the nineties, meant travelling in person due to the lack of social media, internet and mobiles. Carly decides to pack in her job, quit her flat and ramp up the credit cards by searching out each and every one the former men in her life - surely she slipped up and one of them is 'the one'? I love Shari Low's novels - her sense of humour is right up my street but - to my horror - I was late in discovering her work so the new edition of her very first novel is one not to be missed! It's no surprise that she was snapped up by a publisher. The laughs start from the very beginning and I absolutely defy anyone not to laugh at this story. Told in alternative chapters of where she went and what she did after leaving school and where she is now as the year 2000 sneaks ever closer, this is fast-paced and very exiting to read! The writing is sharp and succinct, the characterisation is absolutely superb, the humour is extremely infectious and overall it is an hysterically funny, unmissable read! Best of all, there is a follow-up novel in the pipeline catching up with all the characters from this one - I cannot wait! A brilliant, sparkling five star read and one I recommend to everyone who has the ability to laugh.

I adored this irreverently amusing and cleverly crafted book and am now totally enamored with the vastly witty and agile writing style of the wordsmith Shari Low. I had read her work once before and now I remember why I had added to my list of favorite authors and placed every book on her Goodreads listing to my clinically obese TBR. Written from the singular POV of the ever-resilient and appallingly fickle yet infinitely endearing Carly Cooper who was in the midst of a midlife crisis while facing down multiple issues including her single status, a tattered litany of failed relationships, and the approaching milestone of age-thirty while in the throes of the millennium bug. This being a re-release of Ms. Low’s first book and written in 1999, there were popular culture references and levity that anyone born in this century may not fully grasp that involved the media, Betamax tapes, CDs, Margaret Thatcher, the Y2K bug, 80’s hair and shoulder pads, and huge cell phones. Being so old that I rode to school on a dinosaur while the earth’s crust was cooling, I had no such problem and lapped it up like a graceless glutton at an all you can eat buffet. I continue to covet my bloated TBR listing of her page, as I am a chronically relapsing dieter with a sweet tooth for clever wit.