Tight - Softcover

Brenda Harrison, a straitlaced 36 year-old wife and mother, incessantly frets about her husband's fidelity but refuses to take action; Nora Perez, Brenda's saucy colleague, thinks turning 40 can only mean more wrinkles, cellulite and pathetic dates; and Kamile Cooper, a young efficiency expert new to the Washington, D.C. consulting firm they work for, has "an unhealthy obsession with success" and an inferiority complex to match. This grab-bag of post-feminist angst leads each character, naturally, to plastic surgery in this predictable slice of chick lit from Sanchez (The Way It Is). What happens is more or less a given: after sacrificing health, finance, friendship and family at the altar of cosmetic enhancement, heads level, and everyone learns a lesson about the True Meaning of Beauty. While offering a detailed commentary on the country's love affair with botox and boob jobs ("It's starting to seem like something women just do - like getting our hair done or having a manicure"), Sanchez shows scant sympathy for his characters, and their alternating first-person chapters are rife with insecurity and cattiness. If he's exaggerating for effect, it's hard to tell.
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