Reinventing Mona by Jennifer Coburn

Mona Warren is 31, has a great job and lots of money, but no family and no husband. She is tired of who she has become, someone just fading into the light, going from her day to day activities with no enthusiasm and no spark. She needs to change. She needs to be reinvented. She decides she needs a makeover, and that is easy enough. She exercises, whitens her teeth, straightens her hair and buys a new wardrobe. But she needs more. She needs…a man. Specifically, Adam Ziegler, her accountant and dream man. But since her last real boyfriend had been when she was in her teens and died tragically, she needs help. So she hires male chauvinist/magazine writer Mike “The Dog” Dougherty to help her become irresistible to Adam. His outrageous and female degrading ways actually seem to be working…but somehow, Mona stars to develop feeling for Mike! How could this level headed woman fall for such a man?

Reinventing Mona is the second novel I read from Jennifer Coburn. The first book I read, Tales From the Crib, had me looking forward to another go-around with this comedic author. Unfortunately for me though, I didn’t think this one lived up to what I imagined it would be. Something was just off all the way through. Mona was a nice enough character, but she was someone who supposedly didn’t have a life and didn’t have any idea on how to dress nice or have a real care about her appearance. But pretty quickly, she was dropping designer names and it just didn’t feel real to me. And the background she has was a little strange. Mona lived in commune for the first part of her life, with hippie parents and a terrible tragedy that took away her family. Interesting…but I really didn’t feel that it meshed with the other half of the story- trying to get a man. I think those aspects, combined with a really flat Adam character and way too over-the-top chauvinist turned good boy Mike, just didn’t interest me. The comedic chops that I felt were so on point in Tales weren’t happening in this book either. I think maybe Coburn was trying to fit too many points into one story, and they just didn’t flow well together. I will still keep reading from this author, just because I loved Tales so darn much. I thought the writing was still good in this book, just not the comedy so much, and overall I could recommend Reinventing Mona because the main character was likeable and nice lesson is learned in the end. And there are cute moments along the way, and I didn’t get bored while reading. It just sometimes was a little too unbelievable. While I will say this isn’t her best work, Jennifer Coburn is still an obviously talented writer, and I will read The Queen Gene, which picks up where Tales left off.