You Don't Have to Say You Love Me By Sarra Manning

A Review By Wendy

4 Romantic, Very British, Wonderful Stars ****

This is a tale of a very bright girl who has been very unhappy evolving from being obese to a more standard weight. The hook is she is in love with a fella; thinks she needs to be a size 10 in order for everything to be perfect when they finally get together. He is teaching at UCLA in Los Angeles California and she is still in London losing all this weight. She receives letters from him discussing all types of literary subjects as that is how they know each other; they were at Oxford together. She feels this is her true love and they are soul mates; when he returns after this 3 year separation, he will magically see how she is now Perfect and everything will fall into place.

Now living your live from a very young age with weight issues will stunt your experience in any dating situation. There is not high school fumbles or missed kisses. There are no first or second dates. So Neve needs to get some practice in dating and shhhhh, sex before she has her magical life with her dream fella.

This presents us with Max, known at the magazine as ManWhore. He flirts, leers and charms all who comes in contact. Somehow these two unlikely pair come together and starts a practice or per Neve, pancake relationship. For her, she learns how to be with a man.... to date, to socialize and eventually to do some activities of a sexual nature. For him, he really needs to learn to be a nicer, more caring person.

I loved this story... during the entire time I had the flavor of a Hugh Grant movie in the back of my head... I had the cross of Love Actually, Bridget Jones and any other film that touched on that British flavor. The writing was excellent... there were many secondary characters and I felt all them added to the feel of the tale. I would totally recommend it; sweet yet real feelings came out the time I spent with it.

About Sarra Manning

Sarra Manning is a teen queen extraordinaire. She spent five years working on the now sadly defunct J17, first as a writer and then as Entertainment Editor. She then joined the launch team of teen fashion bible Ellegirl, which she later went on to edit and has consulted on a wide range of youth titles including Bliss, The Face and More.

Sarra is now editor of What To Wear magazine. She's also been a regular contributor to ELLE, The Guardian, ES Magazine, Seventeen, Details and Heat and wrote the Shop Bitch column for Time Out. Pretty Things is her fifth title for Hodder's Bite list and she's currently working on her next book, Lost, for publication in 2006. Sarra lives in North London with her white Scottie dog, Frank Sinatra.