"The Cinderella Pact"

by Sarah Strohmeyer, 2006, 287p, rating=3

Here's a twist... I like the TV movie version better than the book!  I saw the movie about a couple weeks ago on  Lifetime Movie Network (titled Lying to be Perfect) and enjoyed it.  Poppy Montgomery was wonderful as Nola Devlin/Belinda Apple.  Her leading man, real husband Adam Kaufman as David Stanton Jr. wasn't bad either.    A 21st century Cinderella fairy tale rendition ... instead of pitiful to princess, it's fat to skinny.  Can we guess why that attracted me?  Yeap, someone's been carrying an extra load or two *huge grin*, so I can certainly relate!

I'm not sure if I would have liked the book version better than the movie adaptation had I read the book first.  I just really enjoyed the movie take on it.  I would even venture to say it's just about completely different.  The only thing that stayed the same was the plot ... fat lady takes on an alter ego to stay afloat in her career and in the process becomes skinny and ends up with a rich handsome man.  Sexiest?  Not exactly.  Certainly if you go political on it, but then you'd lose the fun of a simple romance story.  It's simply a chick flick/read.

Synopsis by Goodreads:

Nola Devlin has a secret identity. By day she is an overweight, frumpy, and overlooked editor at Sass! (the "celebrity magazine with an edge!"), but by night she slips behind her keyboard and into her alter-ego: Belinda Apple. Belinda is thin, gorgeous, British and the author of a trendy advice column- she is, in effect, the latest Carrie Bradshaw. Not even Nola's two best friends or her self-absorbed sister (who worships Belinda as the "sister she never had") know her secret.

When "Belinda" jots off a column about how easy it is to lose weight, Nola is shocked when her best friends take her own lies to heart and urge her to follow Belinda's weight loss program. Since Nola can't reveal herself as the real Belinda Apple, she bites the bullet and joins her friends in making the "Cinderella Pact"- a last ditch attempt to lose weight (again!) and transform their lives for good.

But as the pounds come off, things don't turn out the way the three friends expect. Their journey of self-discovery leads to the return of an old love and the unmasking of new problems. Meanwhile, Nola finds herself torn between two different men as she stomps out fires caused by her deception as Belinda Apple and falls in love with the man who just might be her prince - or the rat in coachman's clothing.