Book review: See Jane Date
Revisiting Melissa Senate's First Novel Several Years Later
Seven years after its publication, find out if See Jane Date still makes the grade.
When Red Dress Ink (RDI), an imprint of Harlequin, released See Jane Date by Melissa Senate in 2001 as its first publication, it seemed to fill a niche. Chick Lit, a subgenre of women’s fiction, was increasing in popularity and apparently readers couldn’t get enough of these quirky and single protagonists as they dated, shopped, sipped coffee (or Cosmopolitans), and learned to love their fabulous selves.
The problem with See Jane Date now, in 2008, is that it doesn’t have the same resonance as it did seven years ago.
Who is Jane?
See Jane Date is about a young, almost thirty, assistant editor in NYC named Jane Gregg. Jane fabricates a lie that she not only has an amazing boyfriend, but that she’s going to bring him to her cousin’s upcoming wedding.
The problem: she’s further from finding a boyfriend than she is from quitting smoking and convincingly straightening her hair. Throughout the course of the novel, Jane makes friend with a D-list celebrity whose memoir she’s editing, massacres several blind dates, and, of course, comes to terms with being single.
Jane: Several Years Later
It isn’t hard to pinpoint why See Jane Date doesn’t strike a chord with every reader (though it could be considered a pivotal Chick Lit pioneer). The issue is likeability. Chick Lit is driven by characters. Protagonists need to be relatable and worth following for 300 pages. Jane Gregg is hard to cheer for, though. She’s pessimistic, judgmental, and lacks the humor necessary for a Chick Lit narrator.
This isn’t to say that See Jane Date doesn’t make an attempt at humor; it just often falls flat. For example, early in the novel, when complaining about her boss (Jane does a lot of complaining), she says “Sometimes I wanted to take my fist and punch him right in his facelifted face!” Instead of thinking about quirky and original and sympathetic Jane is, the reader might be tempted to think she’s hostile and a little unbalanced.
The intent, it seems, is to create a “real woman” that other real women can relate to—someone who is sarcastic and not a size 2. A great idea. Now, if only Jane had charisma, charm, or something profound to say. Maybe in 2001 she did.
See Jane Grow
Some say that the Chick Lit market has dried up or that all of the readers are now grown with more important things to worry about. The good news is that Melissa Senate has written several other books since See Jane Date that push the genre even further (pregnancy, marriage, etc.) And while her books seem to mature, so do her characters. Read an interview with the author at Chick Lit Books.
A similar book in terms of “real women” characters is Jennifer Weiner’s Good in Bed. This book easily captures the humor and sarcasm that Senate almost reaches in See Jane Date.
