Fourth Comings

June 4, 2007
Acerbic heroine Jessica Darling is faced with the post-college conundrum—what now?—in McCafferty's fourth (following Sloppy Firsts
, Second Helpings
and Charmed Thirds
). Her answer is to finally break it off with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Marcus Flutie, who, after cleaning up his drug habit, studying Buddhism and spending some time in Death Valley, is now at Princeton. But before she can break up with him, he pops the question, and she mulls her response for a week. The bulk of the novel is made up of Jessica's satirical observations on life in New York: the tiny room in a basement sublet she shares with her best friend Hope; her nonjob for a magazine that pays so little she has to mooch off of her older sister; her friends who convince her to go to a club where she is hit on by a seven-foot-tall drag queen named Royalle G. Biv. Though the acid descriptions of city life are as hilarious as in the previous books (her landlord says of her eyebrows: “Zey are like two desperate sperm trying to impregnate your eyeballs!”), the book lacks cohesion, and the ending is a letdown. Like cotton candy, it's sweet and fluffy but has no substance.

August 1, 2007
McCafferty's fourth installment (after "Charmed Thirds") in a series featuring livewire Jessica Darling attempts to cross the bridge between teen fiction and adult chick lit. Jessica has now graduated from college and is living in a Brooklyn sublet with her best friend, Hope, and their gender-bending high school classmate, Manda, earning a pitiful living babysitting her niece and editing for an almost nonexistent magazine. When Marcus, the love of her life, proposes to her from his dorm at Princeton, she takes the next week to decide whether she wants to marry the 22-year-old freshman or go on living her life in New Yorka city he hateswithout him. Despite the novel's witty and candid writing style, Jessica Darling was perhaps better left in her teen years and McCafferty's talents better put to use beginning a new series for twentysomethings. This installment is unlikely to win new readers, although fans of the series will definitely want to read it. Recommended only where the first three novels were popular.Anika Fajardo, Coll. of St. Catherine Libs., St. Paul, MN

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2007
Jessica Darling, last seen in Charmed Thirds (2006), is finally a college graduate, but other than her brand-new degree, nothing has changed. She still overanalyzes everything, including her relationship with Marcus Flutie, her on-and-off-again love, who has finally settled down and is about to start school at Princeton. Jessica is just about toend their relationshipwhen Marcusshocks her with a marriage proposal. Most of the novel coversJessicas musings duringthe week she takes to decide whether or not to say yes. Like any recent graduate, she isstruggling to make the rent, find a job that will pay the bills, and, basically, grow up. Charming and fitting as it was in McCaffertys earlier tales, when Jessica was in school, her protagonistsponderous examination of her life, friendships, andrelationship with Marcus isa bit tiresome this time around. Fans of the series will enjoy seeing Jessica and her friends coping with the real world, but heres hoping that if there isa fifth installment, Jessica will have matured.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)