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ARC for review.

Love US Weekly and In Style? If you do you'll probably like this book. Well, even if you don't, you probably know more about the celebrities covered in this book than you think you do....or at least that was my experience. In a fun entry in the "I'm going to do something for six months or a year and chronicle it" catalog Rachel Bertsche (author of a book I haven't read but remember hearing about MWF Seeking BFF) decides to jump start her life by mirroring different aspects of celebrities she most admires. These recollections are interspersed with her attempts to get pregnant through IVF.

So, we walk with Rachel as she tries to get Jennifer Aniston's body, Gwyneth Paltrow's cooking skills (ah, Gwyneth...yet another celebrity that I dislike so much I'm weirdly fascinated by her), Sarah Jessica Parker's fashion sense, Tina Fey's work ethic (OK, THAT is one I can get behind), Jennifer Garner's marriage (six degrees of celebrity separation. I now live in Jennifer Garner's hometown. I didn't grow up here, but a lot of my friends who did know her and some are still very close to her. Her parents are still here so she, Ben and the kids visit often and she's regularly seen around our not-very-large city....I've never seen or met her, though.), Julia Roberts's "serenity", Jessica Alba's pregnancy (so, spoiler alert, the IVF takes) and...everything Beyonce.

First, even before she starts this improvement plan Rachel seems to be doing OK. She's been laid off from her job, but she's now able to commit to writing full time, which she loves and does well with. Her husband is great. She has wonderful friends. Other than the baby, I'm not sure why she was unhappy with her life. But book contracts are GREAT motivators, and most of us could say with a straight face that we could do better in most of the aspects listed above. The most detailed chapters are the workouts and the cooking, the rest get rather short shrift (which makes sense - how much can you talk about the marriage or "serenity" of someone you don't know at all?). Note, however, that with regard to exercise, Bertsche was already pretty active and by the end of the book she's working out about six days a week, sometimes twice a day. Um, OK. I'm sure she loses weight and feels better, but most people can't do that (Bertsche does repeatedly note that all the women she is emulating have a massive number of paid assistances to make this all look easy and thank God for Tina Fey who admits that she skimps on exercise to work and spend time with family).

There are experts chiming in on the nature of celebrity worship, but there are also some mixed messages here - while she laments "from the minute we drag ourselves out of bed in the morning till the minute we fall asleep at night, we are inundated with messages that tell us we should be thin, beautiful, successful, and sexy while being exceptional parents, supportive spouses, superlative employees, and cheerful volunteers. Oh, and we're supposed to get restaurant-quality Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-three people on the table without breaking a sweat" (302) but then she tries to accomplish all these things, becoming yet another one of those messages.....so is she just another person trying to make slugs like me feel badly? Or aspirational? No great epiphanies to be found here, but, overall this it's a fun, quick read and will likely be quite popular.