Bad Heir Day: A Comedy of High Class and Dire Straits

by Wendy Holden

Book Overview

"Deliciously wicked and hugely entertaining." --Booklist

Anna's boyfriend is impossibly handsome, impossibly rich, and generally just impossible. When he inevitably dumps her, she vows to give up men and throws herself into her career as an aspiring novelist. Which is how she ends up working for Cassandra.

The social climber from hell, Cassandra has a huge mansion, a philandering rock star husband, Satan for a son,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402240619
• ISBN13: 9781402240614
• Release Date: September 2010
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Over The Top Fun

This was one of the funniest books I have read in recent times. Admittedly, it is light and frothy but it is pure escapist fun that will keep you entertained from beginning to end. Aspiring writer Anna is at a loose end both in terms of her career and love life when she takes a job as a personal assistant (that should read nanny!) for the totally atrocious Cassandra, writer of erotic romance novels, wife of a has-been rock star and mother of Zak who should be renamed Damian. What follows is a non-stop adventure of Anna's daily trials and tribulations including her romance with the handsome laird of a Scottish castle. This is not world-class literature (and doesn't pretend to be). Some of the characters are outrageously over the top but the book wouldn't be half as much fun if they weren't. Those reviewers who have given this book one-star ratings and scathing comments really need to lighten up a little. Readers also need to stop trying to equate all contemporary British women writers with Helen Fielding and Bridget Jones. Bridget is Bridget and why should any of these other heroines pretend to be. Try Bad Heir Day for yourself, sit back, relax and just have a ton of fun.

Great Fun!

Holden writes a funny book about a girl becoming a woman of her own. I loved Holden's first book and had to pick up her second book. Anna, the herione of this book is making a journey that all of us have, in one way or another. It's from being an impressionable, easy maleable young adult to being a woman who has a good idea of what she wants and how to get it. Hers is just in a "more glamourous" forum. Anna makes choices good, bad but not indifferent. Sometimes they are just thrust upon her. Holden's writing is always entertaining and she takes us into a world we only see in the tabloids. Holden brings a real identifiable quality to her heriones even if they are in a world that the rest of us will never be a part of. I can't wait for her next book!

Puts the "FUN" in "dysfunctional"!

I absolutely ADORED this book!! Looking through all of the other reviews, I can't believe it got so many one star ratings. I honestly can't remember the last time I actually laughed out loud while reading a book (before reading this one!) The author does go overboard a bit with the puns but, in my opinion, that does no harm to the fun and doesn't change my satisfaction with the book at all. The main character, Anna, can be a bit passive at times, but hey, is that really the fault of the author? Aren't books allowed to have passive characters? If Anna wasn't so passive, the humor probably wouldn't have been so abundant. Let's face it, where's the fun in reading about a character who is too smart and independent to get herself into a situation like this one that Anna finds herself in? If you are looking for smart and savvy characters, then this book probably isn't for you. Anna's employer, Cassandra, is a true candidate for the Jerry Springer show and her son, Zak is quickly following in her footsteps. A few of the other reviewers stated that they wanted to just reach out and slap these irritating characters. Isn't that the sign of a good writer...one who can create characters so lifelike (who here has, in their entire life, never met an irritating person?) that they get the reader all worked up? If these characters had been able to make the reader cry, then some of these one star ratings would have been five stars...("this book touched me..." or "I was so emotionally moved by these characters..." etc) but since we are dealing with dysfunctional, alcoholic sex addicts, that changes things. I do have one confession to make: I found Zak to be totally hilarious! If he were my son, I would have strung him up to the ceiling fan & just watched him go around and around!! My favorite scene with Zak was at the birthday party when the DJ instructs all of the children to get out there and "dance like their mothers do". What Zak does on the dance floor is completely humiliating for Cassandra & hilarious for the reader! Despite all of Zak's quirps, Cassandra refuses to punish him & can't understand why she goes through an average of nineteen nannies a year. True, if this were real life then Cassandra might have to explain her lack of discipline to the Children's Services Department, but this isn't real life; this is entertainment. Try not to take these people too seriously...if you want serious, down to earth characters then you probably won't like this book. This book is full of "basket cases", but that is why I was drawn to it...those are the types of characters I like. Life is too serious...this book was, for me, an excellent escape from the realities of life and a very fulfilling way to spend my weekend.

A Different Kind of Love Story

Add another good one to the wave of wacky British humor novels. Wendy Holden's submission has upped the ante. Wry, sardonic and blatanly intelligent, Bad Heir Day is a novel that will have you laughing, shouting and itching to wring someone's neck all in the course of one sentence.Anna is not your everyday hopeless singleton. Of course, she wants to snag her a husband, and a rich one would be nice, but she also has a smart head with finely-honed red-flag detecting skills. After the first few days at her new job as writer's assistant to the wealthy and snooty Cassandra Knight, Anna quickly realizes she's nothing more than a glorified nanny. Cassandra's son Zak is a holy terror armed with devious pranks and dirty jokes. What's worse, Cassandra's husband Jett, a has-been heavy metal rocker with a lusty penchant for nannies, is the epitome of male sleaziness. And frankly, Anna can't take it anymore. So when she meets Jamie Angus, the heir to Dampie Castle on a remote island in Scotland, Anna clings to him tighter than stink on a junebug. And while the idea of being shacked up with a wealthy heir in an old royal castle amid the mist and heather of beautiful Scotland seems exciting and adventurous, well... let's just say Anna learns more about it than she ever wanted to know.Bad Heir Day is a riotous story bursting with unforgettable scenes. The antics of Cassandra and Zak are what sitcoms are made of -- the novel could have completely went off on a tangent with their story and I would have been utterly satisfied. Although, while the first two-thirds of the novel had me in stitches, I will admit the ending tied up too conveniently and the humor became sparse. However, I am intrigued by the storytelling talent of Wendy Holden and haved placed her other novel, Simply Devine, on my list.

Light escapist fun

I got this book free with a women's magazine, and whist this isn't my normal choice of book, it was a fab escapist read. It is a light read and though it certainly isn't Doestoevsky it will keep you entertained. Her books do tend to follow a certain formula of poorer intellectual type mixing with the rich and dim, then snaring a rich boring bloke but finally deciding that money isn't everything and choosing a poorer one. Despite this, it is fun and as long as you don't expect to be intellectually challenged you should enjoy it.