Selected Book

No
picture
available.

A Slice of Mid-Life

  • Paperback
  • Author: Deana Myers-Bennett Roberts, Diana Myers-Roberts, Bennett Roberts
  • Publisher: Northwest Publishing
  • Release Date: October 1994
  • ISBN-10: 1569013128
  • ISBN-13: 9781569013120

Price Comparisons

E-mail these Cheap Book Prices to a friend!

Store Price Condition Free Shipping? Online Coupons and Deals

Amazon
(Marketplace)

Shop & Save

$5.44

as of 1/9 10pm EST

Used

NO, $3.99

There are no current coupons/deals for this store in our database.
If you find one, please contact us.

Amazon
(Marketplace)

Shop & Save

$66.95

as of 1/9 10pm EST

New

NO, $3.99

There are no current coupons/deals for this store in our database.
If you find one, please contact us.

Shop & Save

button not working?   Click Here

Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon

Summary

I woke up having no idea where I was. It's a familiar feeling. If I did know where I was. . .then I think I'd be worried.

P.J.'s life is simple. Wake up at 2:00 p.m. In someone else's place, on someone else's couch. Shower. Clothes. Club. P.J.'s a punter--someone who fills in if a Didn't able to make a gig. San Francisco is a hotbed of glam bands and alternative rock, and P.J.'s into all of it--she's been living the urban Bedouin lifestyle for almost a year now, saving money to create the blow-out, off-the-hook demo of the music she loves, the music for which she deliberately abandoned "normal."

Ever wondered what it would be like to pack it all in and live the carefree life--no 9 to 5, no daily grind, no routine, no one to check in with? P.J. knows how it's done. The most important element? Lots of friends, with couches. One night it's Cecil's high-end settee, the next it's Sticky's lumpy sofa. P.J.'s even got smarmy Samantha to make sure there's always a hideaway bed from hell in the wings. But when a reporter infiltrates her life, then acts as if she wants to make it her own, P.J. senses real trouble. Could this spell the end of couch world?

Customer Reviews

Amazing, can't get enough!

Rating: Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5

I read this book while I used to work in this office during the slow hours, which happened a lot... and I read this is 2 DAYS! I loved it, and I loved it so much, I read it twice, and passed it on to someone else. I greatly appreciated everything the story had to offer, and I still can not find another one like it. I suggest if you like the music business, to read this book.

An original, to say the least

Rating: Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4

This is the first time I've read a book that was written in BOTH third and first person. It's usually one or the other.

The book really wasn't what I expected it to be though. I thought there would be more "couch hopping" than storytelling of two other women who aren't really even the main characters, Leslie and Samantha. I think if the author just focused on PJ, the main character, instead of telling Leslie and Samantha's stories as well, it would have been a bit of a better book.

I did enjoy it though. It's a quick read. One you can get through in one night, if not less.

An Interesting Premise, But...

Rating: Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2

I bought a copy of Couch World to read on an SF to Miami flight, mainly because the brief synopsis on the back of the book sounded good. The author certainly seems to know a lot about the DJ profession and the club scene, and the local San Francisco Bay area details were a nice touch, but beyond that I wasn't impressed with the story and the ending left me completely flat.

Not a single main character in this story is particularly likeable: all of them came off as spineless and/or self-centered, using each other for their own personal gains. There's PJ, the quirky club DJ who spends the night on a different couch every evening but says she isn't homeless because she has "touchstones", a laptop and a cell phone (buh...?). Samantha is the gorgeous young model/college student with strict parents, who wants to make it big. Leslie is the burgeoning writer who wants a family of her own, but she's trapped in a dead-end job and has a commitment-phobic boyfriend. Sticky is the burly bouncer with the heart of gold, and Jonathan is the music producer everyone wants a piece of. All the families in this story are basically unsupportive, falling into that "why can't you straighten out your life already" mold when it comes to dealing with the main characters, and the mothers are shrewish.

The main gripe I have with this book is PJ's "big secret" and the circumstances surrounding how it is revealed. It's very mysterious and the build-up to it is climactic, and as a reader you do wonder what horrible thing it could possibly be. What I couldn't fathom is why, once the secret literally shows up in the papers, everyone deserts PJ completely, not bothering to find out if the story is even true. Without giving anything away here, I didn't think her secret was that big of a deal. The way the other characters acted, however, one would have thought she was an escaped Nazi war criminal. It seems that any real friend would have rallied in support of PJ, and the mass-abandonment was beyond puzzling to me.

By the end of the book, I could have cared less about what happened to any of the characters but I stuck it out anyway. It ends about the way you'd imagine, more or less with a happy ending for each character, but predictable and disappointing. I should've spent my money on the airline headphones and watched 'Ice Age 2' instead.

good read

Rating: Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4

What I really liked about this book was that she had a very crazy lifestlye and I could never pull it off and this book kept me on my toes to find out what was going to happen next in this world of hers.
Cathy Yardley wrote this very well she kept it young, hip and fresh I hane not read anything she wrote but after this book, I think I may pick up another one of her reads.

Good Book, Bad Ending

Rating: Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3

I've been recently exploring the wide world of Chick Lit and I found Couch World to be an average to good example of the genre. The plotting I thought was excellent and compelling, the characters mostly believable (although I agree with another reviewer that the whole premise of a such a long period of couch hopping was hard to buy--but she WAS quirky!), the writing was average (a bit sloppy at times)--but the ending just aggravated me. I felt a bit betrayed by PJ's seeking out Jonathan, trying to get the romance started again. The whole book seemed to me to be fundamentally about self-esteem: whether you truly have any, what it is and how you get it (facing yourself, honesty, caring about other people). Yet Jonathan ditched PJ as soon as he was led to believe (and he didn't even check out the truth of that) that she wasn't the hip, strong, happening chick he thought she was. If PJ is going to gain self-esteem and true success, she sure doesn't need to get involved with that dude again--whether for romance or business. She would have been better off with Sticky!

Otherwise a decent book in the genre.