This book was so good. I loved the family dynamics and felt for everyone. It really made me reevaluate some of my personal relationships.

I’m a big Jenny Colgan fan and have yet to be disappointed by any of her books, but that being said, this wasn’t my favorite. Similar to her others, this is a light, easy read with a fun British setting. However, I found most of the characters very unlikeable and that brought it down a bit. If you’re new to Jenny Colgan I’d start with Little Beach Street Bakery instead.

Whether you’re a party girl like Penny or a bookish girl like Lizzie, you’ll enjoy following along with the sisters as they make a new life (maybe? if it all doesn’t fall apart?) in Chelsea. Their mother’s embrace of her new freedom is a sweet side dish.

This is a super fun read. I really enjoyed this one!

Many thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I’m a huge Colgan fan and have read so many books by her that I’ve loved, so I’ll admit I may have gone into West End Girls with too high of expectations. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t quite work for me and was lacking a lot of what I love about Colgan’s writing.

The story follows twin sisters, who couldn’t be less alike, who are both looking for something different out of life. So when the opportunity arises to go live in London in their grandmother’s flat, they decide to take the city on.

This was a quick and easy read that was fun to get lost in, but really lacked any sort of memorable depth. I didn’t exactly find our main characters likable and in fact they were quite rude at times, so I struggled connecting with them. I will say there were some laugh out loud funny moments as we follow along with the girls antics and romances in London. This story was breezy at best and would make for a good beach read or book to take on a trip. Overall I was left wanting more. More character development, more depth, richer writing, and just that classic Colgan feel that I love.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the gifted e-copy.

What can I say? Jenny Colgan is always an enjoyable read! Her fans are always excited for ! Thank you..

Thanks for the chance to read this book in exchange for honest feedback. I read the author's "500 Miles From You" last year, and I thought it was decent. I didn't really like this one. A lot of the content didn't set right with me, and the story just seemed kind of vapid.

I typically love Jenny Colgan’s books, but I wasn’t really crazy about this one. Lizzy and Penny are twins (who couldn’t be more different) that move into their grandmother’s flat in a trendy London area hoping their lives will change. Before you read this one, I’d recommend reading her other book if you haven’t.

Thanks to @NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for my ARC!

This is a fun contemporary romance that is a quick and easy read. West End Girls follows twins that go to live in their grandmother's flat in Chelsea after growing up in rural England. Both girls are unemployed and single and this is the perfect opportunity to start over. The girls hope the move will change their lives. This book is a re-release and sometimes seemed a bit dated. The story moved along at a nice paced but it wasn’t my favorite Jenny Colgan novel.

I saw West End Girls on @netgalley and decided take a chance on it. I originally thought West End meant like London’s version of Broadway. I learned pretty quickly that is not what it meant! 😆

Lizzie and Penny are twin sisters from Branford, England. They may be twins, but they couldn’t be more different. Lizzie is chubby, thoughtful and is trying to make something of herself. Her sister Penny is thin, wild, and is looking for a rich husband. Their father left when they were kids so when their paternal grandmother offers them her flat in Chelsea, they decide to become fancy city girls!

They both try to get jobs although it’s harder than it looks. Penny gets a job in an art gallery and ends dating with the first artist she meets. Lizzie gets a job in a cafe with a Portuguese owner who teaches her about food and cooking. They try to hang with their posh neighbors in their apartment building, but they find they can’t keep up.

This book was a fun trip to London. The twins get into a lot of shenanigans and they learn about their family along the way. Buy the girls could be pretty rude and mean to others and there’s definitely a lot of stereotyping which got to be a little much. I still thought it was a enjoyable quick read.

Thank you to @williammorrowbooks and @netgalley for the review copy. This book is on sale now!

3.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book is hilarious, laugh out loud funny. A wonderful rom-com. Penny and Lizzie have such a great sister friendship that is realistic and heartwarming. The romantic relationships will have you thinking about how sometimes our expectations about how life is supposed to turn out is actually quite the opposite but still very lovely. I love how the story played out, teasing, surprising, and satisfying. I loved Bookshop Around the Corner as well so this is now one of my favorite authors. I want to read more from Jenny Colgan!
Thank you #netgalley for the digital review copy!

(2.5 stars, rounded up)

Fraternal twins Lizzie and Penny are used to living in a poor neighborhood outside of London, so when they have the opportunity to move into their grandmother's flat in Chelsea they are ecstatic. This flat will be the key to them living the high life and finding rich, eligible men.

The characters are over the top and pretty one-dimensional. Penny is the attractive wild child and poser looking for a rich man whose personality is summed up as "fake it 'til you make it" and Lizzie is the dumpy twin who falls for a man with a good heart.

Because this book is newly released, many readers will be expecting it to be new content. But the title was originally released in 2006 and it feels dated. Mentions of people like Bill Clinton and Colin Firth as if these people are at the top of the A-list is unusual. A few casual uses of the words "retard" or "retarded" also make the prose seem dated (and insensitive). Since they were going through the trouble of republishing the novel and recording the audiobook, it seems like an editor could have made a few changes to bring the novel into 2021.

Recommended only for hardcore Jenny Colgan fans.

West End Girls has all the charm and coziness that I've come to expect from a Jenny Colgan novel. This novel feels like a warm embrace and is a perfect read for the tumultuous times that we are living in.

Jenny Colgan has written some of my very favorite novels but sometimes a book and a reviewer just aren’t right for each other and such was the case with me and Ms. Colgan’s West End Girls. This reissue of one of her older works (from 2006) simply didn’t enamor me the way many of her newer volumes do.

Lizzie and Penny Berry are twins but they are as different as they can be – at least on the surface. Penny is blonde, thin, and gorgeous. She’s working as a waitress until she catches a rich husband, hopefully one so besotted with her that he will forget the word “prenup” even exists. Lizzie prefers the quiet life; she mostly hangs out with her mother, has one friend with whom she discusses cats, and works in an office in a dead end job. Or she did – she is let go due to the simple fact that the job she does is no longer necessary. As luck would have it, Penny manages to insult a customer and get sacked on the same day, so they are jobless together.

This is all just karma though (or deus ex machina , take your pick). It turns out the elderly, annoying grandmother they had all but forgotten about needs a flat sitter for her place in Chelsea and feels the girls would be ideal for the job. They agree – until they arrive and realize that the flat is a dump and they will spend every night in imminent danger of being buried under years of accumulated empty milk bottles, old newspapers and chipped china.

They are able to clear a path between their rooms and the bathroom and decide to reward such a herculean effort with a job hunt. The ensuing – sorta – hilarity results in Lizzie finding work at a posh sandwich shop and Penny’s beauty earning her a position with a drunken gallery owner. They celebrate their success by going to a club where Penny wins a “tits out” contest, and gets into a fight with another contestant, Lizzie insults her boss, and the whole thing is captured by paparazzi and put in a gossip rag. And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the tale.

I could see myself laughing hysterically over all of this but something about the writing just never elevates it to the point of funny. Part of that might have been the mean streak running through the story. At one point Lizzie’s clothes are said to make her “look retarded.” At another, her boss Georges is accused of being “a retard”. Nice language.

Weight is also a big issue in the tale. If your idea of a good time isn’t hearing someone be belittled for their weight, or guilted over it, or made the brunt of jokes as a result of it, this book probably isn’t for you. The big romantic denouement at the end of the story includes the following paragraph, which every woman wants to hear:

“When I was you know, fat and a bit spotty and stuff . . . did you like me then?”

“Of course I like you. I think you are very nice girl. But when you become beautiful. . . That is when I fall in love with you. I cannot help myself, I am a man, and I love beautiful things. “

The hero does go on to say he will love Lizzie forever, even if she does gain weight later on, but alas the damage was done for me by that point. Penny’s big moment with her hero isn’t much better.

The good news is that the prose isn’t bad, some very minor life lessons are learned, each girl gains a bit of depth to her character and the heroes are 90% charming. The author only turned them into uncharacteristic jerks when it helped move her plot forward, which was a real shame since they were the best part of the tale otherwise.

Humor is subjective and it is entirely possible that others will find the juvenile high-jinks and endless fat jokes charmingly entertaining and amusing but I did not, which made finishing West End Girls more of a chore than a pleasure. If you are a die-hard fan of Ms. Colgan and simply must read everything she writes, you could to give this a go. If you miss the chick lit era and want to relive its drunken, snarky heyday, this might be for you. If neither of those two statements define you, definitely give this one a pass – but instead, try Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe, Rosie Hopkins or Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery. They are lovely books which serve as a testament to this author’s tremendous talent.

3.5 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

This is a fun contemporary romance that is a quick and easy read. The story follows twins that go to live in their grandmother's flat in Chelsea with hopes to change their lives.

Lizzie and Penny are opposites in looks and character. Lizzie is a thin, blonde party girl that dreams of snagging a rich husband and living large. Penny is quiet and responsible, with a more subdued look. They live in a poor council flat with their mother and have dead-end, unsatisfying jobs. They had only minimal contact with their father and grandmother when they were young, so they were surprised when their grandmother asked them to stay in her Chelsea flat and look after it while she stays in nursing home after an incident.

Both girls are excited, especially Lizzie who believes she will finally be able to find a rich husband to take care of her. Penny is a little more reserved. Both girls move in and quickly find jobs, Lizzie in an art gallery and Penny in a small cafe. The book follows the girls' antics and their budding romances.

The characters are a bit one note and the storyline is routine and predictable. That doesn't mean it wasn't a fun book to read, but it's not one that you'll remember down the road. It is a good beach read, or one that you take on a trip. It's a book to read if you can only read in small spurts of time because it's easy to pick up and put down without feeling like you won't remember what you just read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I just adore Jenny Colgan. This is a sweet, surprising story that satisfied my need for something romantic and still well written. Well worth the time.

Another delightful read from Jenny Colgan. I think I like her stand alone books even more than her series! Great characters, believable romance, and insight into the different class levels in the UK.

I was very excited to read West End Girls because Jenny Colgan’s Bookshop on the Corner is one of my favourite books ever. But unfortunately this one didn’t really live upto my expectations. Lizzie and Penny were not really likeable, especially Penny and all the characters seemed very caricature-ish. They all lacked a certain depth. The plot and their actions were all rather silly and it got on my nerves after a while. The arc of Lizzie’s love story was also not something I enjoyed. Overall a below average read.

There’s a snow globe of Big Ben on the cover! Who wouldn’t want to read a book like this?! I just couldn’t pass it up!

Recently, I came across a review about this very book. it stated that the book really wasn’t that great. Therefore, I wasn’t too eager to read it. But, I was certainly surprised!

So this story is about these twin 27 year old sisters, who look nothing alike. Their personalities are also very different! The twins are asked to stay at their grandmothers flat in Chelsea. Both need to find a job and make a competition out of it.

When they each find a job and return to the flat, Penny practically drags Lizzie to head out for the night to celebrate. Needless to say, making it into work the next morning was definitely a challenge! The story seems to continue something like this for a bit while creating more of an idea of who the other characters are in preparation for it coming together towards the end.

My favorite character is Lizzie. She seems to be more homey like me and ends up working in a restaurant. Food service was part of my previous life so I felt like I could relate to her. I was also hopeful that she would turn up successful in the end.

Then there’s her boss, Georges. He is very positive, yet spunky. He teaches Lizzie to cook delicious food, which results in Lizzie losing weight and becoming more confident in herself. He also turns out to be very business minded and building his empire without anyone even realizing it.

You know, as I reflect back on the amazing looking book cover, I do wonder why it’s a snow globe and Big Ben on it. Neither are really mentioned in the story, why is it on the cover?

A digital ARC of West End Girls by Jenny Colgan was provided complimentary by William Morrow and Custom House via NetGalley. While a review is not expected, I believe reviews help readers and authors alike and I’m happy to write this. I give this book 4 out of 5 tiaras because it was enjoyable but I feel like some of the middle was quite unnecessary. Overall, it’s a great beginning and fantastic end.

Jenny Colgan does it again. Another lovely story. A light enough read for our times, but with plenty to think about and characters to love.
Twins, Lizzie and Penny are 27 and still live with their mum in Essex. Lizzie is short and plumb and Penny is gorgeous and fashionable. Both are working dead end jobs and live with their mother on the council estates in Essex. Until their Gran calls and needs them to come live in her large place in Chelsea until she can recover and return home. They realize this could be their big break. Fun things and bad things happen, but their is a happily ever after. Must read.