Chick Lit Review: Famous Last Words by Annie Sanders

"So ... what are you supposed to do on the first day of the rest of your life?"

This is the question posed by thirtysomething single mom Lucy Streeter early in Famous Last Words by Annie Sanders, and it exemplifies her quest throughout the novel.

I’ll admit off the top that I love Annie Ashworth and Meg Sanders, the writing duo who publish as Annie Sanders. I discovered them a couple of years ago, and both Goodbye, Jimmy Choo and The X-mas Factor are among my favorite chick lit reads. They're UK writers -- so Anglophiles like me love the Britishisms and London locales, and their stories move at a fast pace while maintaining an intense attention to detail. I also find that their characters have a range and depth demonstrating careful writing -- they aren't the cookie cutter "yummy mummies" or stereotypical single girls who sometimes populate the realms of lesser chick lit. Annie Sanders creates characters the reader feels like she might know -- love 'em or hate 'em. Most strikingly to me, they also do a great job at weaving storylines from multiple characters into one streamlined narrative. This adds both depth and breadth to their novels, especially because it's paired with careful, thoughtful, engaging prose.

So, I picked up Famous Last Words with hopeful expectation. From what I read on the jacket, it was covering some familiar ground: a fortune teller informs Lucy that she is soon to die, and she sets out to change her life. It isn’t my favorite plot, but I was interested to see what Sanders could do with it.

They did not disappoint. After opening with a brief and slightly confusing jog around narrative time, leading to the revelation (on page 2!) that Lucy isn’t really going to die, we get to know our heroine in-depth. She is kind but pragmatic, loyal, earnest, and straightforward. She owns and runs a clothing shop in a typical English town in the West Midlands (interestingly, this is the first time the Sanders duo has written a novel set in the area where the authors live). We learn that Lucy has channeled her early dreams of a career in fashion design into her now-nearly-grown son, Nat. Lucy is neither melancholy nor pathetic, which is part of the reason the story works: the reader isn’t led to feel sorry for her; rather, anyone with an unfulfilled dream can relate to her situation.

Lucy’s life changes fast after a freaky fortune teller informs her – as the jacket obliquely puts it – that she doesn’t have a future. She does all the things you’d expect (and some you wouldn’t) to put her life in order and live her last days to the fullest. The plot could be heavy or maudlin, but the Sanders writing team treads lightly, weaving in a business-related back story to go with the emotional angst and supporting Lucy with an interestingly motley group of minor characters, including Lucy's mostly absent son, a luminescent best friend, and a guy-next-door love interest.

The story proceeds like fun, funny, well-written-but-typical British chick lit for the first three-quarters of the novel. However, what makes Famous Last Words really unique – and uniquely excellent – within its sub-genre is the fanciful plot twist that shows up just when the reader thinks it’s all been figured out. I’m not usually a fan of fantasy elements in chick lit, but the authors deftly and precisely place their surprise surrealistic element, allowing it to read as whimsical and light rather than oppressive plot-twisting.

These authors know what they’re doing, and they don’t dawdle – from this point forward, the novel moves swiftly to an entertaining yet conventional conclusion. In the way that really good chick lit should function, I wasn’t disappointed by the conventional nature of the ending: instead, since Sanders had convinced me to like Lucy, made her a friend, and drawn me into her story, I was pleased to see that she had figured out what to do with the rest of her life. If you’re looking for glamour lit, or a fast-paced urban setting with heavy romance and lots of posh nights out, this is not the novel for you. But if you’re looking for a Brit chick lit novel with interesting characters and a fast-moving-and-still-surprising plot, I highly recommend Famous Last Words by Annie Sanders.