Showing posts with label alison pace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alison pace. Show all posts

Thursday, November 20, 2008

City Dog by Alison Pace


Who wouldn’t love a novel that is centered on a cute and funny White Terrier? My neighbors have two and they have such wonderful personalities but, back to Alison’s wonderful novel, “City Dog.” This novel is very unique in that Alison uses various view points to relay her messages throughout the novel. Even Carlie (the main character, Amy’s Terrier) has her turn at telling the story. These individual and unique viewpoints pulled me through Amy and Carlie’s experiences as I was interested in what each individual character thought about the events in the novel.

Our main character Amy, works through many real-life situations as she struggles with independence and finding herself and her direction in life. Amy is a very relatable character in which a young woman would easily share the very same interpersonal struggles. It takes Amy quite a while with many different experiences to gain self esteem and realize that she is a strong independent woman. At the conclusion of the novel, Amy is a confident young woman who has finally found her life direction and acts on her self-discoveries.

I truly enjoyed experiencing and working through Amy and Carlie’s situations, but was especially happy that Amy had found inner peace at the end of this novel.

As a side note for Alison - I hope the “Carlie” children’s books are in the works because I know for a fact my kids would love to read the adventures of Carlie and Robert Maguire!

City Dog
By: Alison Pace
The Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780425221433

Monday, December 10, 2007

"Plane" Jane Discovers Life and Art


“If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend” is a fun, lighthearted story of a young woman finding her own identity with the help of her friends and strength that she finds within herself. “Plane Jane”, as she calls herself, is easily identifiable in most every young woman. She is single, has relationship issues, resents her boss, dislikes a co-worker, is bored with her mundane life and is having difficulty finding meaning in her chosen career. These real life issues are so very common among young women that the character of Jane is easy to identify with, even if the reader has moved passed this phase of their life; it can bring back so many individual memories from the readers past.

This novel is centered on the theme of art. However, the reader does not need to know anything about art to enjoy this heartwarming story. This Novel is not a true romance story; it is more in the category of “chick-lit.” However, I would imagine many men would also enjoy Jane’s quirky nature and her experiences in the art world.

I found that this was a very quickly paced novel as Jane and the famous artist Ian traveled around the globe promoting Ian’s artwork. I was eager to read of their adventures together and the mishaps along the way. I was very please by Jane’s character development throughout this story. She began as a very week and uncertain individual who needed to rely on others. In the end, she was transformed into a strong woman who knew exactly what she wanted out of life and carrier and was able to vocalize her feelings and solve her own problems.

One major theme presented in this novel is to always think positive of situations that may seem negative or not fit into our plans. You may find unexpected growth in yourself by remaining positive and finding the “good” in all situations.


“If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend”
By Alison Pace
Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 0-425-20024-8

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