REVIEW: I Don’t Really Need You: A very French romantic comedy by Marie Vareille
The best selling romance by France’s answer to Sophie Kinsella finally available in English
Chloe is the perfect Parisian: she’s too skinny, smokes too much, and drinks too much. She also has the bad habit of getting into toxic relationships, particularly with her ex Guillaume who is engaged to another woman. Her friend Constance, however, is a hopeless romantic, spends all her money on Jane Austen memorabilia yet is unable to find her Mr. Darcy.
One day, the two friends make a bet: Chloe will spend one year in the countryside, far from men and temptations, to finally write the novel she has always dreamed of; Constance will let go of her foolish dreams of romance and start hooking up with perfect strangers.
From Paris to Bordeaux vineyards to London, this bet will have completely unintended consequences.
Dear Ms. Vareille
“I Don’t Really Need You” was recommended to me by a friend who had read it in the original French. She said it was refreshing to see a chick-lit book with a French woman’s POV. It’s taken me a while to take her up on her rec but I found it to be delightful if a teensy bit different from the chick-lit I’m used to. I should say I’ve gone in and out of reading chick-lit. After starting it over twenty years ago with an English author another friend rec’d to me, I began to get tired of the standard format but every once in a while I dive back in and find myself falling for it all over again.
Chloe and Constance might not be a pair of women who would ordinarily be friends but after joining the same book club and discovering mutual ties to the same rural town in France, they have developed a friendship. Chloe is stuck with feelings for a man with whom she has officially broken up but who she once thought she would marry. After they are both at a party, they hook up for the night. It’s after this that we discover what Chloe already knows – that Guillaume is engaged and will be married in four months.
Constance adores Jane Austen and has waited for her Mr. Darcy but at age twenty seven and not having been in a relationship for 28 months (she calls it No-Sex-Land), she (and her family) are getting worried. But instead of having the guts to go out, she prefers to slip into her flowered flannel jammies, heat some hot chocolate and rewatch “Pride and Prejudice” again in her tiny Paris apartment. When despondent Chloe calls her, Constance invites her over which eventually leads to lots of hot chocolate being drunk and the two agreeing to a pact. Among other work related things, Constance will be brave and have a one-night stand while Chloe will be celebate for six months. How will the women do and what will they discover about themselves?
Usually in chick-lit the FMC will be desperate for a man, somehow humiliated, crap at work, and have interfering family members. Some of these elements are here and yet they’re also a bit different than the usual. Chloe could have any man she wants but she hasn’t gotten over Guillaume. She knows her relationship with him is toxic for her but the heart wants what it wants, right? Constance is smitten with an Englishman (she’s met twice) and wants to practice her flirting to be ready for a family wedding this summer that she knows he’ll attend.
Both women are good at their jobs – they just don’t like their jobs much. One reason that Chloe has stayed in hers is that Guillaume also works there while Constance has sort of drifted along in hers with a hard nosed German boss who is actually remarkably patient with her. Chloe heads for the hills to be near her aging grandmother (Mamie Rose is a delight) and stays at the house owned by a relative of Constance while she (doesn’t really) writes the novel she’s been meaning to start. Constance signs up for dating and self improvement lessons with a mysterious woman and after a (€€€€€) makeover at Galeries Lafayette she’s hitting the bars with a bit more confidence.
Chloe discovers that her creativity has dried up even as she’s simultaneously attracted to and disdainful of a neighboring winemaker. Vincent is not her usual type of guy and can be either very helpful or rude depending on the day. He does, however, also know and like Mamie Rose as well as the elderly man Chloe is staying with. Uncle Gonz is a dear, too, who has known Mamie Rose since they were children.
Things go just about as I expected them to and I pegged which men Chloe and Constance would eventually end up with. It’s the journey I enjoyed although there are a few things that are conveyed to and about various people as well as an unreliable narrator that the reader is unaware of until these have caused their damage. Things are done and said based on this misinformation that annoyed me a little when the truth comes out.
Still I liked the Frenchness of the story even if some is a bit cliched. Chloe and Guillaume’s fiancee both live in stilettos. Chloe smokes like a chimney and wears skinny jeans. Mamie Rose had decided opinions about women wearing pants and flats. But despite drinking a lot of wine, Chloe’s knowledge of it makes Vincent and Constance wince though Chloe’s off-the-cuff first impression of a Sauternes that Vincent serves her impresses him. Oh and there is a funny wedding that had me laughing and wishing I could see it on film. Sadly I can’t find any other of your books in translation and my high school French is long gone but I had fun reading this one. B
~Jayne
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