read ten Judith Krantz novels

It’s worth doing to read all of the works by an author in chronological order to see what changes in style develop over the years. I have to say, I preferred Krantz’ earlier works with their rich detail. The later works seem a bit rushed, as if she was under deadline from her publisher to crank them out. I enjoyed reading them, but I disliked that loose ends were tied up too neatly – longstanding feuds dissolved with teary reunions in a few paragraphs, or mentioned in passing with a sentence or two.

Tough slogging through this one. Maxi, rich girl who gets everything she wants, decides to take over magazine after publisher father dies. Evil uncle decides to close down her magazine just as she’s getting underway. Unfortunately, by the time I reached this conflict, I was already bored by Maxi. She has money, she spends millions of dollars to decorate her homes and gamble at the casinos. Krantz’s editor needed to slash some of the excessive materialism and move the conflict further up in the novel.

Krants fills her novels with such detail that it’s easy for the reader to be drawn in to the story. She also does her research – the novels cover decades, but nothing jumps out as anachronistic.

Once I started reading a chick lit book that my friend had recommended, but couldn’t get past the first chapter. The protagonist was having her apartment redecorated by an interior designer who was an animal rights activist, yet chose to include a zebra skin rug in the living room. It was a piddling, minor detail, but I just couldn’t get past that and threw the book across the room.

The female protagonists in these novels face tough situations – death, betrayal, abuse, financial ruin – yet they never give up. On the other hand, they don’t stay poor for long, either. Billie grows up poor but marries a rich husband. Francesca is divorced and doesn’t receive alimony, but has a collection of Faberge to sell to support herself. Daisy loses her inheritance, but in the nick of time is offered a lucrative modeling contract.

Finished reading Lovers last night, which concludes the Scruples trilogy. Krantz’s characters are comfortably rich, amazingly talented, and stunningly beautiful. They are also very human – at times loving and generous, but often insecure, narcissistic, petty, vengeful, jealous, panicky, and capable of wonderfully filthy bedroom antics. Not quite your Danielle Steele heroines.

Finished Scruples Two last week. It started off well, but I hate how it ended. Krantz started linking together two characters, who suddenly broke it off so that the guy could realize that he was truly in love with another female character and wanted to marry her immediately. Hmmm. But on to Lovers...

The story is set in the mid-70s, which explains our heroine’s fabulous office designed in shades of taupe and greige :) I am not even through the first chapter, yet already I can let you know that Judith Krantz has no qualms about using the notorious C word. But then, I wanted to read a trashy, sexy romp, not The Mill on the Floss.

{The Scruples Series} Scruples, Scruples Two, Lovers,
then the novels Princess Daisy, Mistral’s Daughter, Till We Meet Again, I’ll Take Manhattan, Dazzle, Spring Collection, and The Jewels of Tessa Kent. I read a few of these in high school and college, when I was supposed to be reading The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway or articles about the Chandrasekhar limit.