I won’t continue with what happens through the book as I don’t want to spoil it if you are thinking of reading, but all I will say is I don’t recommend and if you want to read Lisa Jewell, I would recommend these by her instead as they are all a thousand times better: Ralph, one of the flat mates in the apartment where the story is focused, goes into his new flatmate’s room and reads her diary. Then he smells her bra and talks in detail about how she was hiding her cup size well. And all of this is just in the first 10% of the book. DISCLOSURE: I listened to the audiobook of Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell, narrated by Imogen Church and published by Penguin, via Overdrive. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. However, the saving grace was the author's fantastic sense of relateability. The moments when the kids are acting up. When Jem is trying to cope with a stinking hangover and has to get up at 6am to sort out the baby. When she's gossiping with women in a posh bar. All of these moments were so beautifully written that I almost felt I was there.

For starters, what partner sods off to the US for a nice holiday, after his wife has literally only just had a baby? And then proceeds to flirt with his mate's partner? What woman invites a single man over to her house for 'curry', flirts with him, then goes cold and expects that to be okay? It’s fair to say that After The Party is totally different to it’s prequel Ralph’s Party. It has a very different feel to it – as I mentioned, Lisa’s writing has evolved – and whereas Ralph’s Party featured six main characters (Ralph, Smith, Siobhan, Karl, Jem and Cheri), After The Party was mainly about Jem and Ralph. The book begins with a prologue, set in the present year, before being split into multiple parts set mainly in the year that causes Jem and Ralph to think about taking a break from each other until we ourselves come up to the breaking point in Jem and Ralph’s relationship. It wasn’t how I expected it to be but I was happily pleased with how it was all laid out. Jewell's ability to round her characters out is already in evidence here, as is her ability to think outside the box. Not everything went as I expected, she has thrown a few surprises in the mix. EXCERPT: Ralph barely noticed Jem the first time he saw her. He was arguing with his girlfriend, Claudia, sitting at his desk, cradling the phone under his chin as he carelessly pulled elastic bands into tight ligatures around his wrists in an apparently subconscious attempt to cut off his blood supply and end the painful predictability of it all. Tony is with Ness, but he really wants Milly. Milly has confided in him about what an ass Sean is being about the baby. Sean has confided in him about how he doesn't really want a baby. Tony told Sean to grow up. They have a dinner one evening and things comes to blows between Sean and Milly and Sean leaves. Ness goes to bed and leaves Tony alone with Milly. Tony tells Milly how wonderful he thinks she is and they kiss. Then Tony realizes he doesn't really want Milly and that them doing anything would be a huge mistake. And all of a sudden, he's over his crush. He makes love to Ness that night and professes his love, but in his head, it was just something he said not something he meant. He breaks up with Ness. Ness is close to mom so she heads to her house, but mom is out. Only Ned is there. Ned comforts her and realizes how great she is. He decides to escort her to the party.jewell has never met a plot device she didn't like. - seriously, what DOESN'T happen here. crumbling relationships, unplanned pregnancies, planned pregnancies, planned abortions, spontaneous abortions, stalkers, drug addiction, infidelity (emotional and physical), trips to california, revenge sex, celebrities,quasi-religious conversions/cults, etc. TOO MUCH! it was like the last hour of armageddon (the movie) where you're pretty sure they're going to get out of this whole "end of the world" mess but first the drill has to jam and steve buscemi has to ricochet off a meteor. towards the end, if one more thing happened, i would have been forced to close the book prematurely.

If I'd had to buy the book the old-fashioned way, it would have stayed on the bookstore shelf. Because I would have been able to flip through the book and easily determine that the Jewell magic, at least for me, just isn't present. After The Party is an incredibly emotional read because it’s clear that Ralph and Jem belong together no matter what so to see their relationship self-destruct is horrible to read. I wanted to shake them both and tell them to stop being so silly. I rarely get so involved with characters but with Jem and Ralph I just couldn’t get enough. It helps that Lisa Jewell gives us both Ralph and Jem’s point of view, making for a very fair view of their relationship. Lisa Jewell really is a fantastic writer because, to be blunt, After The Party isn’t your usual boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love affair, After The Party is about what it’s like after being together for a huge amount of time and all the troubles a modern couple face these days. It was a very turbulent year in the life of Jem and Ralph and I really didn’t know how it would end. This is not what I was expecting from Lisa Jewell. The previous Lisa Jewell books I've read were suspense thrillers, this was more a love triangle and it wasn't thrilling in any way.There are several more incidents of this sort of selfish behaviour that made me thoroughly dislike them both. They came across as the epitome of pampered London types, used to getting their own way, using others without thought of the consequences and so forth, and I really didn't like either of them.