I could not put The Makedown DOWN! What a great read. I laughed and smiled the whole way through. I was looking for a fresh new story to read and was I got just that from this book as it was entertaining and fun. Gitty is such a witty author and I can't wait to read more of her work!

I admit, chick lit is not my favorite genre, but this book goes a long way to changing my mind. This book is chick lit with an edge - entertaining and funny!

Ok as a huge fan of My Fair Lady and Pygmalion I had to read this and it's HILARIOUS! Pokes fun at all the conventions we use to measure a good catch. Anna is a funny, silly, clever and totally relatable hero!! Totally enjoyed this!!!!!!

Television has Tina Fey and now the book world had Gitty Daneshvari! I was sooooo floored by this book! Not only is it hilarious, but it's amazingly relatable! This is totally going to be the next book that we read in my book club. My girlfriends need a good laugh in these tough times!

I stumbled across The Makedown and set my expectations accordingly, knowing it fell well outside my normal "genre." I wasn't 30 pages in when I noticed that one word kept reverberating in my head, distracting me completely: remarkable! This book if flat-out remarkable!

Daneshvari's use of language is out of this world. Subtle, complex, clever, layered, introspective, extrospective, all sorts of 'spectives, and above all, just plain hilarious. There are parts of this book that made me laugh. The sort of uncontrollable laughter often reserved only for really good Peter Sellers movies. Rarely an analogy I would use to describe a book. But it fits. I thought this review, at best, would say things like "great for this *type* of book" or maybe "what a neat *guilty pleasure*." But that just wouldn't be true. This book is great, period. And it is a pleasure, period.

The book is the story of Anna. And unless you fall into the "10% genetically lucky" (poorly paraphrasing Daneshvari), you know Anna. You may BE Anna. She's not happy with her weight, or her hair, or her face, or her cloths, or her. And the more she's reminded of her looks the less she does about it. Then she finds New York and the promise of a new her. Then she finds Ben who is just too good to be true, and in love with her. But the years of neurosis remain, even with the new and improved Anna, and she can't be comfortable with herself enough to let Ben love her. As he comes to embody what everyone wants to be but can't, Anna, along with the reader, decides to bring him down a notch. For "his own good." And The Makedown begins. The results are hilarious to say the least, and a strong commentary on our lives at its best.

Beyond the overt hilarity of the book lies an intricate analysis that tries to make sense of the absurdity of the modern human condition. The thousands of external stimuli that go into constructing our psyche seem deconstructed here. An intimate portrayal of the hardships of self-evaluation we each go through everyday. I urge any reader to not find at (very) least one aspect of Anna to relate to. Buried underneath incredibly clever writing is the totally relatable truth that we; men, women, children, and adults find very hard admit. A lot of times, we just f'en hate ourselves. How do you deal with such a hard world when that's how you wake up to in the morning? Well, ask Fatty, 'er, I mean Anna. In a Kafka'n twist the cerebral masochism that flourishes in our modern society takes on a very real, very justifiable turn as Anna's self inflected ugliness turns external. As she turns sadists, blurring the line between self-preservation and vengeance, we, the reader, have our moral foundations blurred. Are we routing for Anna to keep her Ben? Or are we routing for Anna to destroy him? Either way, Go Anna go!

What a great, fun read this was! I was laughing out loud in the first few pages and never stopped.
First time author Gitty Daneshvari is a very funny writer!

Anna Norton is 'that kid' in school. You know - ostracized because she's the smart one, but with greasy hair, bad skin, uncool clothes and also overweight (by quite a bit). Her family is also more than a little bit nuts. After university Anna decides to make a break for it and move to New York where no one knows her.The only job she can find is with a private caterer. The owner - Janice - turns out to be - in Anna's words her FG (Fairy Godmother). Janice herself is a self described FF (Former Fatty). With her help Anna changes. Then she meets Ben - and falls madly in love. The problem is that so does every woman that meets him. So Anna decides to make him over, well make him down. Make him so no other woman will want him. I won't go any further into the plot, but things don't go quite as planned.....

Populated with laugh out loud characters, dialogue and situations, Daneshvari has penned a chick lit book that will have you giggling on the couch until you turn the last page. The Makedown is a great rainy day read.

For the first hundred pages of the book, Anna is fat and self-loathing. She is teased and shunned everywhere she goes, and writes hateful diary entries to herself in a book called Dear Fatty. When she goes to New York City to jump-start her life, she meets the Fairy Godmother she'd been searching for all those years. Janice, a caterer, hires Anna and puts her to work walking all over New York to gather ingredients. Janice also starts Anna on healthy eating and water, plus buys her clothes so she'll feel better about herself in the meantime.

Janice's plan works and Anna gets skinny. She is still just as insecure though, and it shows. When she is first asked out by Ben, she believes it's either a joke or a pity date. After some time together, she still cannot believe he actually likes her. Ben is the epitome of hotness, so much so that everywhere he goes, both women and men fall all over him. He loves the attention so he smiles back, which freaks Anna out to no end. Convinced he will leave her for someone more attractive, Anna decides to sabotage him so women will not find him as handsome.

She then starts doing the most horrid things to the poor guy, focusing on ruining his hair, clothes, and weight. As her plan finally starts to come to fruition, that's when the book gets funny: the way Ben reacts to the secret manipulation. It's hilarious. On one end, I can understand why Anna would be worried: Ben flirts with everyone, he tried to feel her up while watching a tv special about the now grown & legal Olsen twins from Full House, and wanted to watch a movie just because the actress in it, Jessica Biel, is hot. I'd probably get jealous too. I just don't think I'd handle it the way she did.

I know where Anna was coming from, I've yo-yo'ed weight-wise my entire adult life. I've hated my body and been incredibly insecure with horrible self esteem. Even so, I never once thought to write mean things to myself in a derogatory journal or be so self-destructive or selfish. I have a hard time relating to Anna or liking her because of her actions, but I can understand them, and this book is raw, honest, and screwed up ... in a way that still manages to be very entertaining. In the end, I came to respect Anna, and to really like this book.

This was a fun escapist read. Just like how you personally wouldn't ever do half the things BRIDGET JONES would do you can also somehow relate well The Makedown's Anna Norton is that same way. You enjoy reading about this character journey. The author has a great dark sense of humour and I often found myself laughing out loud at times plus it's a really quick read. I'm telling all my friends to go read this book!

I am sitting in my favorite chair reading an advance copy of THE MAKEDOWN by Gitty Daneshvari when I start a silent laugh. The silent laugh then gets louder and louder until my husband says, "What?" I then start to tell him what I am reading and why I am laughing when I laugh so hard in the telling that I am now wiping my eyes. Yes, this book is that funny at times.

This is a story about a young woman who spent her childhood and her early adult years as a "nerd" with a bad complexion, greasy hair, overweight with a brilliant mind. She moves to New York where her new boss, who was once a "nerd" herself, decides to help Anna, our main character. With her bosses coaching, Anna becomes the woman she has always wanted to be. At this point in the story, she meets Ben, the man of her dreams. He would be considered a hotty by most and she can't believe he is interested in her. They become an item and Anna's insecurity blossoms. She decides the only way to assure herself that Ben will always be hers is to make-him-down. The definition of Makedown is the lessening of external beauty and innate confidence as a means of leveling the playing field. She puts a three point system into play and the results are hilarious.

In a time when things are so stressful, financial insecurity runs rampant there is little to laugh at these days. This book will supply the laugh we all need and then some. Gitty Daneshvari can change careers any day as a comedian.

If you want entertainment that will make you laugh, wonder at the ingenuity of the human mind - buy this book. I warn you though - make sure you have time to read it in one sitting...otherwise, you will be miserable until you can find time to finish it.

The Makedown is a very interesting book and definitely more than chick lit. I could relate to it in some ways, I could definitely weigh less than I do and I love junk food. I was very interested to see Anna's transformation from a totally socially awkward over-eater to a thin more confident women.

Before I started reading I was unsure where the book would start. Would it start right at the Makedown and hint to the past and Anna's transformation or start before that? Thankfully it starts when Anna is very young and gives snippets of her life until she graduates from college and then the story settles down and proceeds from there. So by the time the actual makedown starts we have a real sense of Anna and her hopes and fears.

I think my favorite part of the book was right up until she started dating her Mr. Wonderful, Ben (I couldn't really see his appeal beyond his physical attractiveness). Then I felt like she became a totally different person (which sometimes does happen to people) and not in a really good way. I admit it was pretty funny to read about how she tried to prevent her boyfriend from flirting and being flirted with but after awhile it did get kind of sad, though Anna did realize her mistake and tried to fix it.

Her banter and relationship with her FG (Fairy Godmother) was great. I was really interested to see how she was going to kick her junk food addiction and lose all her extra weight, some pretty drastic measures had to be taken for it to happen. I thought the book could have done without the Epilogue but besides that I thought it ended how it should have.

I would definitely suggest this book, it's funny, hopeful and a bit out of the ordinary!

This is what chick lit is all about! There hasnt been many good chick lit books out there lately. It seems as if the genre is dying off. I was glad to see that chick lit made a comeback with The Makedown!

The Makedown was a fun read which left me giggling at some parts. I loved the main character Anna too. She was someone I could relate to even though I'm not much of a FF. I liked that the ending wasnt as predictable as I thought it would be.

I can't wait to read another book from Gitty Daneshvari!

Anna Norton's sharing her soul and mind's view of her world immediately brought me back to remembering Holden Caulfield's telling us about his life's experiences in "The Catcher in the Rye." Anna, however, is quite a bit more proactive. The Makedown A great read!

I admit it, I LOVE CHICK LIT! This book is at the top of my faves. Gitty Daneshvari's wit and humor is without a doubt pure entertainment. If you like chick lit then you will love this book!

I rarely read a book that I think warrants a good review...until NOW. Not since the John Hughes films of the 80's like Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink have I found a character like Anna Norton. The author writes with a wit and a humor that so is so natural and relatable that I found myself choking with laughter!!

To put this book into the cataegory of chick-lit is insulting and not since David Sedaris have I found a voice as refreshing and as hilarious as Ms. Daneshvari. A real talent. A must read for women of all ages!!!!

i like your book