The Temp by Emily Benet

The Basics:
The Temp by Emily Benet
HarperImpulse
Romance, Chick Lit
Published Octoober 23, 2014
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon

Why I picked up this book:

It sounded light and fluffy and fun!


Blurb:

Amber is a twenty-something, out of university with a degree she’s not sure what to do with… so she temps in order to earn enough money to live in London.

One of her favourite life-hacks is to attend modern art gallery openings for free wine. It is during one of these that she thinks ‘if they can do it, why not me?’, and meeting a handsome gallery promoter cements her ambition to become famous through her art.

With the help—and sometimes hindrance—of her friends Farrell, Bibiana, and Egg (short for Egbert), can Amber achieve her dream AND snag handsome Elliott?

My thoughts:

The Temp is an amusing piece of chick lit fluff that I got rather worked up and frustrated with until I realized I was taking it too seriously.

Originally published serially on Wattpad, I'm not sure how much the final book resembles what was available there. What I do know is that it does have some pacing issues that I would chalk up to the previous format. It takes a while to get rolling, but once Amber's trying to get her contemporary art career off the ground, things get delightfully silly and fast-paced. 

I did find the treatment of contemporary art a little... well, on the one hand a lot of it *does* seem quite silly, but I felt that the way Amber enters into it is a little... careless, I'll say. 

As for the romance, there's a bit of a love triangle here, and one side of it doesn't get enough time to give me the full impact. I needed a bit more build on that side. 

Still, there's a lot here that's fun to read. Amber, while a tad self-involved (she always assumes her friends will understand when she puts herself first), is a hoot, running about the city of London with an eye for the ridiculous. 

Quite a bit of her adventures read true in terms of a young twenty-something trying to figure themselves out after college. Falling into temp work while trying to figure a direction for life is absolutely a common story, and I think the idea of moving in a career direction after college that doesn't exactly jive with your degree is a really common experience as well.

Ultimately, this book made for a nice contrast with all the moody, angsty New Adult books I've read lately (with their horribly damaged, emotionally wrecked characters), and I appreciated that.

Bottom line:

If you're a fan of the absurd, silly or ridiculous, I think you'll like this book. It's fluffy and light, absolutely easy to read. I don't think it stood up for me at all when I gave it more thought, but sometimes that's really not what you want in a book - sometimes it's about pure entertainment.

3.5 stars
For fans of Bridget Jones' Diary, Janet Evanovich, chick lit, ridiculing contemporary art, non-serious books.