A thinly-veiled self-help book for the chick-lit generation of Bridget Jones’

The Man Diet: One Woman’s Quest to End Bad Romance

Zoe Strimpel

Strimpel is a successful Cambridge graduate, and Lifestyle editor of business newspaper, City A.M, but has chosen to use her talents for evil with her second novel the Man Diet.

Incorporating real women’s stories, self-evaluating checklists and light social-historical research, The Man Diet aims to liberate your brain from its man-induced turmoil.

Dishing out priceless tips such as, ‘no talking about men’, and dedicating an entire chapter to Facebook stalking, The Man Diet can be firmly categorised at the lower end of the ‘chick-lit’ genre.

Strimpel puts a lot of energy into ripping apart prominent works such as Men are Form Mars, Women are From Venus, but fails to notice she has penned a carbon copy of these ‘outdated’ works, and is just selling them in a pseudo-feminist package.

Her colloquial style is distinct and confident, which is admirable, but it turned me right off, and certainly didn’t lend her an air of expertise, which is vital when proffering ‘holier-than thou’ wisdom.

Strimpel is a talented writer however, skilfully knitting together laugh-out-loud anecdotes and up-to-the-minute social paradigms, it’s just her subject matter that sucks.

Her heart is in the right place, and I can see where she has attempted to impart life lessons that free-up women’s time (she suggests they empower you, but I wouldn’t go that far) rather than tips on how to catch a man, but The Man Diet just adds to the over-stuffed library of condescending self-help books for women.

Watch out for explicit sexual content.

AW