Review: The Lonely Hearts Club

The Lonely Hearts Club

by Brenda Janowitz

Publisher: Polis Books

Pages: 288

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Jo Waldman lives life to her own soundtrack—working for her father by day while pursuing her music career in NYC’s downtown clubs at night. Music is her passion, along with her boyfriend, Jesse, who shares her dreams of making it big. Jo's old band, The Lonely Hearts Club, came thisclose to getting a huge recording contract, and she’s just biding her time, waiting for lightning to strike twice. The music business is tough, but so is Jo.

So when Jo's father fires her and Jesse breaks up with her, Jo doesn’t get upset—she just wants to rage. Dusting off her computer, and typing in the familiar address for the Lonely Hearts Club's old blog, Jo writes an entry, pouring her heart out about the shortcomings of love. Nobody visits the site anymore, so it's a safe place for Jo to vent. Except that the site sends a mass e-mail to the entire Lonely Hearts mailing list, notifying them that there's a fresh message on the site, so now everybody she's ever met knows that Jo has been brutally dumped. All Jo wants to do is hide under the covers, but to her surprise, supportive comments start flowing in—most from screen names she doesn't even recognize. Jo soon becomes an icon for all things “anti-love.”

There's only one problem: the web programmer helping Jo with her anti-love site is too damned cute! Jo's never been very good at depriving herself of anything, but if the budding relationship with her web programmer is exposed, she'll be revealed as a total fraud and risk losing all of the people who have grown to love and trust her. So is it time to start singing love songs, or time to pick up the guitar and return to the hard rock that almost got The Lonely Hearts signed in the first place? Jo's got some big decisions to make, and it looks like she's going to have to take one step closer to doing something she never thought she'd do--becoming a grownup. 

Kritters Thoughts:  Jo is a daughter who has received quite a bit of help from her parents and at the time where the story begins  her father is ready to cut the strings and have her try to live on her own.  At the same time she has a boyfriend who wants other things in life - namely not her and her job situation is quite poor, so Jo must work on all areas in this book and hopefully come out on top!

First, I love that love wasn't the only speed bump in Jo's road of life - the job and family were also issues that she had to deal with.  I felt like the author perfectly combined all the dramas where nothing overshadowed the other, but it also didn't feel too dramatic. 

I also absolutely love all of the supporting characters they were fantastic and added so much to the book, but didn't take too much from the main story.   

This was a great chick lit with substance!  


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2015 Challenge: 9 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.