Mercury in Retrograde

Mercury in Retrograde

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3.05 of 5 stars 3.05  ·  rating details  ·  735 ratings  ·  170 reviews
When Mercury is in retrograde, the only guarantee is anything that "can" go wrong, will.Penelope Mercury, an intrepid reporter at the "New York Telegraph," has pounded the pavement for five years from city borough to borough, carrying out her boss's eccentric orders to break stories that seem inconsequential to everyone but him. Finally, she is inches away from being promo...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published June 2nd 2009 by Atria (first published May 15th 2009)
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Rita
When does 2 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 2 = 1 star? For me it happened in the process of writing my review for Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich. First, a few disclaimers: In general, I am not a reader of chick-lit, I have never seen an episode of Sex in the City, and I have never spent time in New York. However, since my day job (I’m a junior high school teacher) is pretty demanding, I sometimes want to unwind after an evening of grading papers and writing lesson plans by reading something relative...more
Terri
Yes, it's an easy read. Yes, it is a book to get away with. Yes, there is a character named "Lipstick". But don't let that frighten you away!

I thought this was a clever "upper-class meets middle-class" book of how friends can come from the strangest places. Three very different young women in three very different stages in their lives help each other make it through to tomorrow. A rich girl with a $7,000-a-dress habit, a lawyer who's lost herself, and an advertising lifer with nowhere to go but...more
Jemima
This fun story focuses on three young women who live in the same apartment building in New York city. There lives are in chaos of one form or another. Dana is a divorced lawyer who is having difficulty in getting on with her life. Other than work the only place she ever goes is to Weight Watchers meetings. Penelope has been fired from her job at the Telegraph and is running out of money to pay her bills. Another character nicknamed Lipstick is a wealthy socialite who has been cut off from her pa...more
Claire
Aug 09, 2009 Claire rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: this is amusing chick lit
Shelves: grownup-books
A contemporary novel set in New York City when Mercury goes into retrograde and cuts a swath through the lives of three women, who in normal circumstances would Never meet. Penelope Mercury is an entry level reported for an Enquirer type tabloid aspiring to move from covering stories on the gritty streets to the courtroom beat. The day Mercury slides into place she inadvertently set the newsroom on fire, loses her promotion to a well connected slacker and is shocked to hear the word, "I quit!" l...more
Rachel Bussel
have to admit, I was a little skeptical of a book with a main character named Lipstick, but Paula Froelich won me over with this juicy, fun read that's perfect for anyone who's ever lived in New York, worked a crappy job, had their family expect too much of them, or had relationship troubles. In other words, everyone. Riffing on the world she knows well, Froelich has reporter Penelope Mercury running all over the city under horrible conditions, only to be fired and wind up with one of the crazie...more
Robin
Jun 27, 2009 Robin rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those who like lighter fiction
Recommended to Robin by: ARC from Shelf Awareness
Shelves: fiction, 2009-list, arcs
It was odd when I received the ARC for this title because it had an entirely different cover than the one you see pictured here. What they did for the promotional copy was to use quotes from the blurbs different writers wrote about the title. Clever but confusing for me because when I saw the cover I expected an entirely different kind of book!

But, that said, I enjoyed this book and it was fast reading. I'm sure both my sister or sister-in-law who read a lot will enjoy this too. Another odd aspe...more
Sarah
Mercury in Retrograde is chick-lit in all its glory, with close glimpses inside the life of socialites and fashion designers. The novel is incredibly short under 300 pages, making the novel a fast and fun read, but also not lasting long enough for readers who truly enjoy the chick-lit genre.

This book is very light and enjoyable once you get used to the cadence of the author's style. It was heavy for me personally at first, only because I do not keep up with socialite and fashionistas in general,...more
Toni
I saw a review recently that gave this book one star. I totally disagree. This book was funny, smart and entertaining.



The book is named for the title character, Penelope Mercury, who is a struggling reporter at a mid-level, slightly tabloid-y newspaper. The opening pages find Penelope having a serious FML day as she has to chase a story in the freezing cold with a photographer who won't let her ride in her car, while she battles a horrible head cold and a tyrannical boss. Also featured are Lena...more
Ket Lamb
If you're a devoted follower of the New York Post's Page 6, you'll probably devour this semi-entertaining, albeit predictable, tale of twentysomethings in the city. Sloppy syntax, shallow characters, and a story that doesn't get started until almost a third of the way through, however, will test every one else's attention. So will Lipstick's silly name. (Do you really want to read about a protagonist named after a cosmetic?) Granted, the title refers to a planetary phenomenon, but it's never pro...more
Deirdre
Despite a mildly formulaic feel and a very happy but a little too pat ending, I was surprised at how thoroughly I enjoyed reading this book. Three down-on-their-luck women end up in the same SoHo apartment building and rebuild their lives largely through their helpful and often hilarious interactions with one another. Each character is well-conceived and carefully drawn, and watching them wrestle with personal and professional failures (and eventually successes!)was made highly engaging by Froel...more
Kathy Hiester

I thoroughly enjoyed Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich's . I expected a hint into a kind of daily life that I have always wanted, one with money, glitz, and glamour. What I got was a comedic story that archives real people. It entails three women whose positions place them in each other's pathways and whose choices create new lives for each of them.
Penelope Mercury, the first character and the namesake of the novel has to go to great lengths to keep what is in effect a horrible job but whe...more
Gina
I was one of the lucky winners of a free copy of this book through Goodreads. The book got better as it went, and had some very funny parts. The three plot lines tied loosly together, as these very different women came to help each other as friends do. In the end their lives, while connected, where still independent of one another. I'm used to reading novels with one strong plot line so this was a little different reading experience for me. If I reread it I would take more time to tie The horosc...more
Csutton624
Such a predictable book - just another NYC story with a socialite angle. And, I will say, jumping between characters WITHIN chapters is super annoying - and this book does it the entire time. I liked each character - at least they didn't let themselves get walked all over - but I could have told you what would have happened. Such a bust. And I am really tired of NYC books. I LOVE NYC and would live there in a second. But all books these days are the same story/characters, etc. about NYC women. A...more
Tiffany
“When Mercury spins between the Earth and the Sun, a condition that astrologers call Mercury in Retrograde, it appears to the untrained eye that it is hurtling backward” although it is not, of course. The phenomenon is actually a shift in the viewers’ perspective and it is during this time period that even the “lowliest of fortune tellers will inform you, Mercury in retrograde means one thing, if something can go wrong it will.” And it does…....

Read the full review here:
http://acozyreaderscorner...more
Elizabeth Spiers
Paula's one of the funniest people I know, and Mercury in Retrograde is full of the sort of too-ridiculous-to-be-true-but-they-ARE anecdotes that, when told by the author, result in direct incapacitation of one's ability to breathe. If you haven't laughed that hard in a while, consider it a medical warning.

Also: it's nice to see a book in this genre that features women who have careers and actually discuss said careers instead of merely shopping and bitching about men. Especially for those of u...more
Connie
I won twelve copies of this book for our book club and we finally got around to reading it! Mercury in Retrograde reads quickly and is reminiscent of Sex and the City. A group of women with seemingly nothing in common become friends due to circumstances that place them in the same apartment building.
While not too "deep" it touches on relationship issues, social status, careers, fashion and romance. The story has some fun humor and a few annoying antagonists. It is a fun read for a beach weekend...more
Kasia S.
Initially I really didn't like the book, maybe the fact that the word p@nis all ready appeared at the bottom of the first page, to me chick lit is supposed to be warm and fun, fuzzy and hilarious with a real sparkle and this felt like a narrative of the characters and why their lives are so whacky. Once I got into the book more I was laughing at some parts, especially when the meeting at Y magazine where Lena Lippencrass works ( socialite wanna be) was going over latest beauty trends and the wor...more
Betsy
A great beach read is how I would sum up Mercury in Retrograde. Sometimes fluffy is just the ticket. I liked the vulnerability of the characters and there were many times that I laughed out loud at the characters’ predicaments – especially Penelope’s career foibles at the New York Telegraph and NY Access. I also appreciated the fact that the characters weren’t all ivory tower New Yorkers – they were ‘regular’ Joes with bills to pay and mini-mountains to climb on the way to their fairy tale endin...more
Valerie
I saw Paula Froelich on Real Time with Bill Maher a while back and really liked her spunk and wit. Based on that, I looked forward to reading her first novel. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed. Though a bit of that spunk and wit does come through in Froelich's writing, much of the story is quite formulaic and predictable. The story is about three young women in NYC who find each other at tumultuous times in their lives. I've already seen much of Penelope's storyline in Bridget Jones' Di...more
Angie
What a great afternoon read. The book was light and fun Chick-Lit! The story of 3 young women and a couple of queens living in New York. I loved the astrology column type sections introducing the different chapters and scenes. And I know from experience how painful Mercury in Retrograde can be. One of the characters describes herself as more Jew-ish than Jewish. I thought that was clever. I thought--Jew-ish like New-ish, not quite jew, not quite new.
Stacy
I didn't really enjoy this one. It was a book club selection for summer, and it was appropriately light. And I like light chick-lit as much as anyone. But I just didn't think it was that interesting or well-written. I didn't find the characters particularly real. It was a lot of fluff. It was written by the editor of Page Six in NYC. It was a quick read, and I should add that many of my book club peers really enjoyed it as beach reading
Stephanie
I loved this chick-lit book as did my mom, who read it after me. It's basically about three girls with totally different lives from different backgrounds that end up living in the same SOHO apartment building. Through a series of events, all due to the fact that Mercury is in retrograde, they eventually become friends and help each other discover each one's true selves. The book was funny and had very current references such as SATC as it was published in 2009. For the author's first novel, I th...more
Lexi
Yet another NYC chick-lit name-dropping frothy book.
Not terrible, but it is what it is.
Not as good as Tatiana Boncampagni for the same flavor, quite like Lauren Weisberger, but infinitely better than the loathsome Candace Bushnell, whose whore-oines have been inexplicably misunderstood as some kind of warped symbols of female empowerment.
It made a decent bath book, if you ignore some absolute howlers in the writing.
Laura
This was a very frothy novel about 3 women in NYC who end up in the same apartment building and become friends. The author works for the Page 6 column of the NY Post, so the book is full of name dropping, designers, etc. There were a few very funny moments surrounding the title character Penelope Mercury's job at a cable news channel but for the most part the book is forgettable. A fine read for the beach or pool.
Amblingbooks.com
Paula Froelich, a well-connected gossip columnist for the New York Post, brings her insider's perspective to this delicious debut about the bonds of friendship among three very different women.

Listen to Mercury in Retrograde on your smartphone, notebook or desktop computer.
Laura
It took me a while to get into this chick-lit, but once I did it went pretty fast. The horoscope framing devise didn't do anything for me, but it was fun to try to guess who the author was describing through her characters (I heard several of them were based on real people). And it ended kind of fairy-tale neat. But not bad for a light read.
rebekah
It was a piece of crap. BUT, I secretly enjoyed it cuz I need something easy to read during my challenging workouts. Three chicks, separate lives brought together by one hipster apartment building in Manhattan. There were actually a few glimmers of funny but overall, just another smarmy chic lit book that doesn't make the grade. Dammit.
Linda
Wonderful new format to read! I liked this book form start to finish because the antices of the women characters made me laugh. Paula writes realistic
"fiction" when it comes to describing relationships, the fickle world of work, and women's ideas regarding relationships with men. I read this through my library advanced copy program.
Courtney
This book was just all right for me. I'm not a fan of books that have socialites as the main character, because I often find their world shallow. I also had a hard time believing that anyone would seriously call someone by the nickname "Lipstick" throughout the entire book. The plot and characters became better as I continued to read it, so I'm glad I stuck through it.
Alexis
Apart from the Swedish descent's character's last name being spelled Karllsen...(should be Karlsson--hello, Danish is "-sen" Swedish is "-sson". Someone dropped the ball on the research there. Sorry off my "-sson", soapbox now!)...it was the normal path of life is messed up, life takes some crazy turns, life becomes perfect. Predictable, but wonderful piece of chick lit.
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Paula Froelich is the New York Times best-selling author of the debut novel, “Mercury In Retrograde.” She is best known in New York for being the deputy editor of the New York Post’s gossip column, Page Six, where she worked for ten years until June, 2009. She was also a correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider” from 2002 to 2006 and has appeared as a guest on “The View,” “Real T...more
More about Paula Froelich...
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