3.5 stars

This is a story of three women (late twenties, early thirties) who are each struggling internally with personal issues; Renee is beautiful both inside and out but, as a size 12, she constantly compares herself to thinner women. When she competes for the position of beauty editor at a magazine, her body issues hit an all-time-low; Cate is holding back a secret that she feels threatens her new leadership position at the magazine; This secret also keeps her a bit emotionally unavailable for relationships both platonic and romantic; and Abby has run away from her life in the suburbs and is starting to see the influence her childhood has had on her present choices. Renee and Cate have been roommates in their small NYC apartment for a while but never true friends, but when Abby's brother Trey asks them to take in his sister, things change.

I have mixed feelings about this book. In truth, I had difficulty putting it down because I wanted to know what would happen to each of these girls (no pun intended). In that respect, it was a great book. At the same time, I was often not happy with the author's choices and, with the exception of Renee, did not sympathize with the girls as much as I think I was supposed to. Cate, in particular, got on my nerves more than once. Each time she made a bad choice, she would internally acknowledge that she might be doing the wrong thing but then she would justify it and do it anyway. I thought she was a bit selfish, although she redeemed herself somewhat at the end. And while I understood what provoked Abby to do what she did, I still found her actions hard to swallow. Renee, on the other hand, was extremely likeable and sympathetic. She was, by far, my favorite character and the only one in whose story I felt truly vested.

*SPOILER ALERT* I really did not like the love triangle aspect of the book and was very upset that the author choose to make Cate the object of Trey's interest when Renee was such a better match and, in my opinion, a much better catch! My heart broke and my blood boiled for Renee as I watched the building chemistry between Trey and Cate - did not like the idea of them together AT ALL.

Finally, there were issues in the book that I thought could have been resolved better - for instance, the cyber-bullying of Renee by her colleague was never really addressed - that could have added more tension.

I absolutely LOVED Skipping a Beat and will certainly continue to read books by this author but this one is not a favorite.