Jumping the Shark

Dear Ms. Shapiro,

I read your first book, The Matzo Ball Heiress, and was entranced. Here was a book, where the writer didn't shy away from the ethnicity of her characters. It was a relief to read a book set in New York, where the main character didn't work in the publishing industry, or a magazine, and who wasn't a WASP. You created vivid portraits of the heroine's family, from the divorced parents, on down to the main character's brother's girlfriend, who pretended to be Jewish while working at the Matzo factory.

So I couldn't wait to read your latest book for Red Dress Ink, intriguingly called The Anglophile. Here I thought was a book written for me. Like Shari, I am an ardent Anglophile, and have been ever since childhood. However, unlike Shari, I've actually managed to make it to the UK numerous times. I found it inexplicable that someone who was such a devout Anglophile, wouldn't have scrimped and saved for years to take a trip. My parents certainly didn't have a lot of money, but they certainly made sure I made it to England.

I found it curious that for such an Anglophile, she would choose such an odd subject for her dissertation on linguistics, when there were no many intriguing possibilities for her to be a scholar in Chaucer's Middle English or something.

But I was willing to go with it when Shari met the adorable Kit quite by accident in Chicago on a tour. I was even willing to accept the cooincidence of Kit being Shari's rival in the research on the lost language Volapuk. Even when Shari was deceitful in not telling Kit about her situation back in New York, which leads to an akward scene in New York, I was willing to go with it, because there were no many delightful scenes like the skunk funeral.

But then you really jumped the shark with the introduction of the character of Owen, a complete cipher, who emerges as a rather odd spoiler in the relationship between Kit and Shari. Even your explanation for Shari's behavior in England, I thought was a cop-out. The bottom line was, I didn't like Shari. I tried to like her, but you just had her do so many stupid things. And I found the ending to be completely implausible, considering everything that had gone on with Owen before.

So I'm going to have to give this book a solid C+

EKM