Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55438 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Cosmopolitan
'Colgan is on top form with this, her latest outrageous romp'

Hello!
'Wonderful, warm and resonant for anyone who ever wondered what happened to teenage dreams'

Daily Mail
'funny, poignant and well-observed. If a time capsule were buried to capture the world at the turn of the 21st century, this would be a candidate for inclusion'

Customer Reviews

Cure for insomnia
If this is her on top form, I think she should give up and get a job she can do! Without depth, humour, plot. It feels like it was a plot forced to meet a deadline. I'd recommend it only to anyone who needs to sleep where the Night Nurse has failed. It will bore you into a coma.

Maybe her best book
The journey of a British woman to the US, in order to find one of her favourite 80s idol. Unbelievably funny yet melancholic, a page turner and a message that sometimes following a dream is not about chasing chimeras but more like taking a risk to make our lives better.

I like Jenny Colgan. She's always funny but never cheap.

An American road trip adventure
Having read and enjoyed Jenny Colgan's first two novels, I picked up a copy of 'Looking for Andrew McCarthy' and was pleasantly surprised to note that it's not your typical romance novel. Colgan's trademark storytelling techniques are present, fans will be pleased to learn: her easy to read narrative, witty (and often ironic) humour complements the feel-good tale of a thirty-something girl on a quest for answers about life, and why it didn't turn out quite how she had hoped.

The main character in the book is ditzy Brat Pack fan Ellie 'Hedgehog' Eversholt. As she reaches the dreaded three-oh, she realises that even though she has a group of wonderful friends, a steady job and a flat to her name, she is miserable with the cards she has been dealt in life. Often nostalgic about her adolescant years - the nineteen eighties - she ponders the movies she grew up with and wonders why it is that all the promises they held never quite made it into her life. With this in mind, she decides to take a trip to LA in search of her teen idol Andrew McCarthy (of Brat Pack fame) and demand answers.

I found the concept of the book superb. It is unlike any other story I have come across and contains such a colourful (if aometimes cliched) array of characters. Ellie is consistantly entertaining and her determination to complete her quest is admirable.

That fact that much of the story is set in LA, New York and - more unusually - Kansas City - provides many an opportunity for the landscapes and cultures of the places to have some impact upon the direction of the story. As it follows the theme of a road trip, Ellie and her friends have many an adventure in their search for Andrew McCarthy. Colgan should also be praised for her sensitive approach to issues such as inter-racial relationships, single-parent families and bereavement. 'Looking for Andrew McCarthy' is a wonderfully uplifting book in general, however, and contains many memorable lines and amusing moments. It's certainly worth a read.