It’s Not Me, It’s You

CW: death of a pet due to illness, including description of diagnosis, last 24 hours together and euthanasia. I first marked this book as DNF, but then decided to go back and try to read through it. I did manage but it was a long slog. I think McFarlane has become a better author since this early work; It's Not Me, It's You was standard Chick Lit with a fairly hapless heroine and a jerky boyfriend who turns down her marriage proposal and then is revealed to be cheating on her with a younger coworker. Even Delia's journey towards growth is pretty unrewarding; she ends up doing PR work for an obviously odious boss, and the alleged Mr. Right is frankly just as awful as her ex-boyfriend, if not more. He starts out blackmailing her, immediately assumes the worst about her relationship with her boss, lets Delia think he is dating a beautiful journalist, and patronizes her when they finally end up on the same side. When Delia grows a spine and starts sticking up for herself, it's too little and too late. The other subplots, about Delia's resurrection of her comic book superhero story, and her confusing e-relationship with a mysterious guy who sends inflammatory, troll-like emails to her first place of employment, are under-developed. At least one of them should have been trimmed or deleted. I really enjoyed McFarlane's more recent books, including [b:Don't You Forget About Me 34109621 Don't You Forget About Me Mhairi McFarlane https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547391932l/34109621.SY75.jpg 55135579] and [b:If I Never Met You 51213487 If I Never Met You Mhairi McFarlane https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595853597l/51213487.SY75.jpg 71665792], whose heroines had more agency and confidence, but I think I went a little too far into her backlist.