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A review by fionacalda
Campaign Ruby by Jessica Rudd
4.0
I've been wanting to read this for a couple of years and *finally* got hold of a copy, only to devour it in all of two days.
Ruby lost her banking job in London, drunkenly booked herself on a flight to Australia, found herself at a cocktail do which turned out to be a political party fundraiser, and she impressed all the right people to land herself a role in the party's election campaign.
Forgetting that this was written by the daughter of the prime minister, who managed to write about the female treasurer ousting the prime minister in a leadership spill, thus becoming the first female prime minister of Australia.... all this she might have written BEFORE it actually happened in reality (happened in June 2010, book got published August 2010.. )... ok so forgetting this book is written by Ms Rudd daughter of Kevin, it really was a quite up-to-standard chick-lit and thoroughly enjoyable. I've read much much worse.
The only thing that grated on me was Ruby's clumsiness, which too many chick-lit protagonists seem to have as a "quirky" character trait (Bridget Jones being the most famous). But her love of shoes, good wine and to-do lists were endearing nonetheless.
I really loved the whole scene of the election campaign. I loved the madness of it all, of hopping on planes going from one random location to another every day, of combatting bad-news stories and thinking of election-spin for anything that goes wrong, of those 4am tele-conferences and grabbing meals on the go (burgers and nuggets at Macca's, hilarious!), all with a massive election-day deadline and trying to win the country's vote, much less trying to keep up with personal dilemmas (mostly not being in the same place as her clothes) and family issues. How Ruby managed to recover from her rhinosinusitis with hardly any sleep I'll never know. And on top of that Ruby's a Pom in Australia and in need of translation most of the time (the Australian-isms were probably a little *too* strong I think).
(Does the Leader of the Opposition really get called the "LOO"??)
My favourite secondary character was little Clem, Ruby's niece, though I've never met a five-year-old so interested in other people. The dialogue where Ruby was explaining to Clem that she "tripped and fell over a journalist" was bloody funny.
Oh yeah, speaking of which, there IS romance, kinda the whole point in chick-lit novels. How she fit it into her hectic hectic life I don't know. But it works.
So.. I loved the book, not sure I want to read the next one as this one's enough. Thank you Ms Rudd.
Ruby lost her banking job in London, drunkenly booked herself on a flight to Australia, found herself at a cocktail do which turned out to be a political party fundraiser, and she impressed all the right people to land herself a role in the party's election campaign.
Forgetting that this was written by the daughter of the prime minister, who managed to write about the female treasurer ousting the prime minister in a leadership spill, thus becoming the first female prime minister of Australia.... all this she might have written BEFORE it actually happened in reality (happened in June 2010, book got published August 2010.. )... ok so forgetting this book is written by Ms Rudd daughter of Kevin, it really was a quite up-to-standard chick-lit and thoroughly enjoyable. I've read much much worse.
The only thing that grated on me was Ruby's clumsiness, which too many chick-lit protagonists seem to have as a "quirky" character trait (Bridget Jones being the most famous). But her love of shoes, good wine and to-do lists were endearing nonetheless.
I really loved the whole scene of the election campaign. I loved the madness of it all, of hopping on planes going from one random location to another every day, of combatting bad-news stories and thinking of election-spin for anything that goes wrong, of those 4am tele-conferences and grabbing meals on the go (burgers and nuggets at Macca's, hilarious!), all with a massive election-day deadline and trying to win the country's vote, much less trying to keep up with personal dilemmas (mostly not being in the same place as her clothes) and family issues. How Ruby managed to recover from her rhinosinusitis with hardly any sleep I'll never know. And on top of that Ruby's a Pom in Australia and in need of translation most of the time (the Australian-isms were probably a little *too* strong I think).
(Does the Leader of the Opposition really get called the "LOO"??)
My favourite secondary character was little Clem, Ruby's niece, though I've never met a five-year-old so interested in other people. The dialogue where Ruby was explaining to Clem that she "tripped and fell over a journalist" was bloody funny.
Oh yeah, speaking of which, there IS romance, kinda the whole point in chick-lit novels. How she fit it into her hectic hectic life I don't know. But it works.
So.. I loved the book, not sure I want to read the next one as this one's enough. Thank you Ms Rudd.