First time reader of Kathy Lette and I’m now a fan!

Friendship, betrayal, love, family drama and of course revenge is all in this book. If I had known how funny Kathy was, I would have been a fan a long time ago. I was hooked from the beginning and couldn’t wait to read the ending.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC for my honest opinion.

This was a very entertaining read in true Kathy Lette style. A good book to read if you’re after something lighthearted (although it does contain some serious issues)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Matilda is fed up with her ex husband exhausting their bank account and even more depressed when her literary agent refuses to publish her latest novel on the grounds that she is too old for her books to appeal to modern-day readers.

Penny is brasses off when she is axed as co-host of a long-running and popular TV programme, and Cressida, an actress, is quite sure that her husband is having a flig with a much younger woman.

The three open their hearts when they meet up with Jo, now flaunting herself as handsome Joe, and working in Hollywood with a control freak who refuses to work with any women.

All four were great friends when at University having formed a poplular band, but broke up and all went their separate ways after graduating.

At their reunion in London ad a pep talk from Joe (or should it be Jo) , they set out to take Revenge, in various ways on all the men who have used, abused, ad upset them ………

Understandably there are several criticisms and finally everything could well collapse but, with an unexpected turn of events, would everything work out well or not ?? This would make a good holiday read.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Aria & Aries for an ARC of this novel.

This is a very funny, very sad book about how women over 50 fare in contemporary society. Just when they think all their hard work has paid off and they are truly hitting their stride, the hardest years of childbearing behind them, in comfortable relationships or happily alone, careers established with more success imminent, someone says “No. You’re too old.” And they are expected to shrivel up and get out of the way. Because even in the 21st century, there is a unspoken consensus that youth reigns and women over 50 are old crows. Men over 50, on the other hand, get to live—and thrive—as though age merely enhances their every sign of aging.

That’s a harsh interpretation of ageism but the author hits the mark with this story of four female friends whose ‘best before’ dates are suddenly and randomly declared to have passed. This comes as a terrible blow to three of them. Jo is the only one who had already seen the reality and had actively chosen an unconventional approach to fight it. Fast friends in university, the four had gone their own ways, and Jo was the only one who had left the UK to work in the U.S. They are stunned to find that Jo had become Joe, looking like and living as a man. Never committed to being a woman, she finally made her choice when she was fed up with being overlooked, denigrated and dismissed in her career while lesser-skilled men rose. The other three are accepting of her choice, but refuse to surrender their view that life is currently much better for women—even those “of a certain age”— and that they are living proof of that.

On their second lunch date, all three have been through a serious and synchronous overturning of the very dreams they had thought were imminent only a week earlier. Joe was right. Tilly, the writer—who is actually writing this story—has been dropped and insulted by her life-long editor, because no one wants stories by and about women her age. The actress Cressida is offered a job by an indifferent millennial agent —doing either vaginal deodorant or adult diaper commercials. A respected actress and crowd stopping beauty who gave up her career on the request of her high flying lawyer husband, she was confident that, now that the youngest of her four daughters was leaving home, she would simply resume her film career. But she is too old. She returns home to her blessed consolation of a husband, with whom she is celebrating their 25th anniversary, to find him having sex with an actress one third his age. Penny, the intrepid war reporter and hard-nosed TV journalist, is informed at the very last minute that her longed-for move from a lunchtime to a prime time slot will happen only for the stupid male co-host she had carried for fifteen years. He is her age, but she’s the one who is too old.

Jo/Joe’s response to their plight is not smug or self-righteous, as it could be. She doesn’t feel vindicated, but counsels vindication. And so the Revenge Club forms. With Joe in the lead, each of them summons strengths old and new to fight a seemingly unwinnable battle against sexism reinforced by ageism. What they plot, and what they do, together and alone, is testimony to the bonds of friendship among women. In the wonderfully witty and often lewd Tilly’s voice, it is also hilarious and heartwarming. Of course they don’t win the war, but they have notable battle victories. I’ve never before read anything by Kathy Lette, but she has definitely won a place on my “must reads” list with this one.

Watch out all misogynists, the females of the species are taking no prisoners! They’re out for blood, well humiliation at the very least!!

Told entirely from Matilda’s perspective, an estranged group of four university friends is brought back together to enact revenge against the chauvinists in their lives. The lengths these women go to are brilliant and most definitely chuckle-worthy!

These women haven’t seen each other in years, their camaraderie is like an old friend. They slip into their parts of the fight with ease, their planning and execution is admirable especially as they pull in other wronged women to join the revenge.

The Revenge Club is a call to arms, a movement against misogynistic behaviour against female counterparts. Lette has created a comic take on a very serious and relevant subject. At the heart of this story is friendship and female solidarity. This is a highly entertaining topical read! Fabulous read!

I've never read Kathy Lette before but I knew of her fame, so had high hopes for this when I requested it from Netgalley. The premise in the blurb seemed good, but sadly, I was lette down. This book is a string of internet memes put together - all ones I have seen before many times. The four main characters are unlikable, and I bridled at the old-fashioned way they were presented as past their prime. I seriously doubt that is the modern experience for women in their 40s and 50s - it certainly isn't mine or my friends'. The denouement wasn't too bad, but not enough to bring this up to three stars.

Lette disparages 'I-don't-give-a-shit lit', but that's exactly what she has produced. Right at the end, Tilly (the fictional Lette character) writes a book about what has happened in The Revenge Club, then attacks the reviewers who didn't like it, almost like Lette expects critics to pan this book because she knows she didn't put much effort in and that her best is behind her.

I think the final straw for me was when Tilly called her autistic daughter 'the neurodivergent' rather than by her name or 'my daughter'. That gave me the ick. I won't be reading anything else by this author.

***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***

After reading the short excerpt, I was thrilled to bits when the publisher and NetGalley gave me access to the ARC for The Revenge Club. I'd absolutely LOVED chapter one and was eager to see if the rest of the book was just as good.

It was better! Absolutely fabulous!

The laugh out loud moments continued as well as poignant moments. I will definitely recommend this book and we on the look out for future titles by this author.

Another great book by Kathy Lette.
She is a great author & this book lives up to her usual high standards.

After previewing chapter one of The Revenge Clue a while back, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the full book. It was worth the wait.

Kathy Lette has created incredibly likeable characters in Jo, Matilda, Cressida and Penny. Four women headed for their 60s, feeling happy and content with how their lives have turned out until, well, men.

Each of the four find themselves suddenly facing lives that they hadn’t planned for and do not want at the hands of the men in their lives.

Not content to sit back and take it lying down, they decide to get revenge.

A deliciously devilish romp of a read, which gives you all the girl power feels.

Sweet Retribution..
Matilda, Jo, Penny and Cressy - intelligent, independent, bright, funny, sassy - all highly successful women. So why, suddenly, do they find themselves in a situation where they are being overlooked? The world, it seems, is still a man’s one - and age plays its part in a woman’s. These women scorned are most definitely not going down without a fight - and it will be the fight of their lives. Enter - The Revenge Club - getting mad and getting even. And, it will be so, so sweet. A fabulous romp through the struggles of women everywhere and how it feels to enjoy that delicious taste of sweet retribution. Funny and furious.

Kathy Lette, The Revenge Club, Aria and Aries, May 2024.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Kathy Lette has not let her joy in creating a comedy undermine her strong story line that promotes the abilities and strengths of women fast approaching their sixties, a continuing fight to break the glass ceiling, and the perfections and perils of friendship, partnerships and children. The Revenge Club is such a romp – but also such a marvellous insight into women’s friendships, partnering and dealing with children. It is Lette’s ability to combine joyous writing, graphic descriptions and serious content that makes this such a powerful and fun novel.

Matilda, Cressida, Penny and Jo meet, at Jo’s invitation, after an estrangement at the Oxford May Ball at the end of their university years. Matilda, Cressida and Penny are successful – two in paid careers, Cressida, one-time successful actress, now providing support for her executive husband and their two children. Matilda has two children also and is a single parent except for their father’s access to her bank accounts, their children’s hearts full time, and hers on foolish occasions. Matilda is a writer and expecting her latest novel to garner a lucrative contract. Penny is childless, an intelligent television presenter who appears with a younger, but less able, male presenter. Success and belief in women’s equal status in a now ideal world oozes out of the three in their meeting with Jo. She is far less confident that the glass ceiling has been broken and has ensured her success by adopting a male persona.

Matilda, Cressida and Penny are quietly buoyant about their futures, while remaining kindly towards, as they believe, errant Jo. They vaguely speculate on what went wrong with their friendship in the past but coming to a conclusion about that is not their priority. After all, they have important meetings in the offing which will seal their success and support their belief that all is well in women’s world. Of course, they are disillusioned in some well-drawn scenarios – a strength in this novel, where pathos and comedy mix freely. Meeting with Jo again they adopt plans for revenge.

Beautifully realised is Melody, Matilda’s daughter who is on the autism spectrum. Melody is a joy to meet, with her special needs outweighed by her contribution to her mother and her friends’ revenge plan. Charlie, her brother is also a character who adds to the interest in this novel – Lette does so well in her characterisations, and the children are worthy contributors to these. The men are also described with a range of emotions and behaviours that, while they are mostly deplorable, add to the comedy as well as the grim realities of the patriarchy. Matilda, Cressida, Penny and Jo are remarkable almost sixty-year-olds without being implausible.

With its well woven themes of revenge, sisterhood (and its shortcomings) dips into the television and writing worlds and the ugly all male world of the awards ceremony, Kathy Lette has written a novel well worth reading. I look forward to seeing more of her new work, and catching up with the old.

This tale of revenge is hilarious but after a while the constant one liners became too much. I would have liked more depth in the characters. I think it would make a great short story. Not for me, but other readers may well enjoy it.

Classic Kathy Lette. Sparky and intelligent. Another bonkers (in all the right ways) but tightly plotted story from the Queen of irreverent humour. Kept me chuckling all the way through. Loved it!!

I first read Kathy Lette’s books in the mid Nineties and laughed and laughed through them all. Nothing has changed. The Revenge Club is a fabulous romp with women who have had enough of being disregarded for their age and sex and exact the best revenge on the men who have made them feel that way.
It’s funny, clever, witty and frankly wonderful. I loved the characters and their back stories and how that they turn the tables.
There is a little poetic licence with regard to Jo and the way they can become ‘one of them’.
I would highly recommend this for a genuine laugh and it’s better than any self help manual to think the feminist way!

Absolutely brilliant, loved it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending.

Thanks to Aria & Aries and Net Galley for the ARC! I was first granted access to the extract of this book and was HOOKED! The twist is so original!

This book follows a group of friends who are being overlooked because they’re female and ageing, so they form the revenge club to get back at the men that have wronged them.

It’s a really fun, and funny book but I found 400+ pages a lot.

I hadn’t heard of Kathy Lette before this book, which I was drawn to because of its great cover art, and I’m not sure I’m the target audience. I found the pursuit of farfetched revenge fun, but the quips and remarks from the characters got a little grating to me by the end. For me, this could have been a 4 star read if a hundred pages from the middle could have been cut.

Overall, an entertaining read, if you’re looking for a funny take on the female rage revenge plot then this is the book for you!

I loved the premise of this, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me. Too much repetitive lecturing , I found myself scanning through to see how they got their revenge. Though not for me, I'm sure others will enjoy it.

An totally fun read where four women come together to bring down some utter idiot men from their lives. Fun and with more than a passing nod to the 'Me-Too' movement. Light and quick to read with an especially entertaining last few chapters The main character, Matilda a comedian sometimes tries too hard to be funny but her autistic daughter and wayward son are a pure delight. Lighthearted but also giving us a reminder about cherishing one's friendships, maybe having overlooked their emotional needs whilst being involved in our own lives. Certainly highlights the invisibility of the older woman.

‘The Revenge Club’ by Kathy Lette is a witty feminist tale of revenge, the sisterhood and being a vibrant and smart woman in her fifties. The story begins with old pals and bandmates Matilda (our narrator), Cressida and Penny waiting at a table in a fancy London restaurant to meet Jo, the fourth member of their former friendship group who has returned to London for work after years in the US. The excitement of the reunion and an unexpected revelation from Jo soon turns sour when Matilda, Cressida and Penny are all confronted by “the four horsemen of the female ageist apocalypse: criticism, contempt, stonewalling and invisibility.” The burning desire for revenge brings the four women together as they plot the demise of their patriarchal tormentors.

I really liked some aspects of this book: there were so many acerbic one-liners that had me laughing out loud. Their plans were funny and devious, and the involvement of Matilda’s children was enjoyable. I also lapped up the finale which felt very fitting and empowering!

I have to admit, I did find some of the lamentations of the characters repetitive and a few of the plot points a little far-fetched. I’m not sure the book had that much new content to add to the feminist agenda and a twist some way through the book didn’t come as a huge surprise. I also thought that the novel would have been more interesting with a more diverse group of main characters - while one character was referred to as working class, this didn’t seem to impact her career trajectory and felt like tokenism.

Overall, I’m giving this three stars. I really would recommend it for a quick, amusing read! However I would have preferred more bite and diversity.

I was kindly provided with a digital review copy by the publisher, Aria & Aries via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This was an east read which I devoured in a short time. Seemingly four successful women, who are not so young, have their lives upturned by selfish and misogynistic men. Revenge is sweet. At times I did feel a bit like I was being lectured to, but mostly it was humourous in places and delightful to see the bad guys get their comeuppance. Underneath, there are serious issues at play here, and Kathy Lette is astute enough to call out the women who deserted Jo in her time of need. A book to read for entertainment, but also a book that does show some gender issues warts and all.