Name Dropping

While on vacation, after finishing Breaking Dawn, I read Name Dropping by Jane Heller. I took it along on vacation because it seemed like a perfect beach read. It did not disappoint. I almost completed it in two days and it only lasted until the third day because we came home and I had too much to do to finish it right away.

Name Dropping is the first book that I have read of Jane Heller's. On the cover, it was reviewed as being a funny book, with witty one-liners. It was cute, entertaining, fast, fun, easy and a little funny. But it was not laugh out loud funny like I was expecting from the cover.

The premise of the book is that a nursery school teacher, with a life that she feels is boring, suddenly has her life changed because someone with the same name, and a much more thrilling life, moves into her building. She begins getting this other woman's mail, phone calls and deliveries. At first, I didn't like the main character because I felt she was rude. Here she is getting this other woman's messages, and mail and she didn't deliver them immediately. She would wait for a couple of days. And she receives a delivery from a pharmacy that she knows immediately is not hers and yet looks at it anyway, snooping into this other woman's life, making judgements because of the medicines that were in the pharmacy bag. That bugged me. I didn't feel that it fit with the character profile and I didn't like that the character acted in such a manner. But I let it go and got past it, so that I could enjoy the story.

It was a sweet story with mystery and romance. I felt somewhat connected to the character's life because of her profession. Having small children and being the Assistant Director of a preschool, albeit a very different preschool than in this book, I could relate to her life and the mishaps in the classroom. There are a few twists and turns that, even though they were expected, do add interest to the story. In the end, she realizes that her life was not boring and that she she makes a difference in the world every day by working with these children.

It was a perfect beach read. A book that I took to the beach with out hesitation, and one that I wanted to finish to see the outcome. Of course, it has a happy ending. Don't all good beach reads?

Happy Reading!