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Summary
Summary
Sometimes being left in the lurch is the best thing that can happen to you.Alison Hopkins's live-in boyfriend, Tom, goes out in the middle of a dinner party to buy a jar of mustard, then calls her from a pay phone to tell her he won't be coming home. He's left her for his beautiful ex-girlfriend Kate Pearce, the kind of woman about whom men say rhapsodically, 'She's like a drug.'Alison had always feared that Tom's looks would land her in trouble-having a handsome boyfriend is like having a white couch, an invitation to disaster. But if Tom isn't her Big Love, who is? Alison embraces her freedom, buys 'hiking boots and lacy underwear,' and sets out on a stroll down the midway of love. From an eye-opening fling with her new boss to an unexpected proposal from an old friend, Alison samples love's many varieties-all the while talking obsessively with her girlfriends, comparing stories, and working through a lifetime of conflicting beliefs about trust, faith, and commitment.In spite of (or perhaps because of) her neuroses, Alison finds a surprising kind of triumph-and an irrational faith that the Big Love may be nearer than it appears.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The annals of love have recorded many a humiliating breakup over the years, but Alison Hopkins gets hit with a humdinger in this surprising, touching and hilariously deadpan debut novel. When she sends her live-in boyfriend Tom to the supermarket right before a dinner party, she figures the worst that can happen is that he'll get the wrong mustard. Instead he calls from a pay phone to tell her he's not coming back at all, because he's fallen in love with his college sweetheart, Kate Pearce-with whom he's been sleeping for five months. If Alison were a Sex and the City siren, she'd distract herself with martinis, Manolos and misappropriated men, but she's a broke columnist for the floundering weekly The Philadelphia Times. Plus, though now lapsed, she was raised evangelist Christian. So it's a new pair of hiking boots, pie-contest judging and furtive dalliances with a coworker for reluctant good-girl Alison as she tries to gauge the ins and outs of the single world that non-fundamentalists mastered in their early 20s. Alison's struggles to fit into the mainstream world are fresh and full of wisdom, and Dunn's humor is marvelously dry: "Bonnie had a sudden flash of what he might come up with on his own so she drew a picture on a cocktail napkin of a wide band of channel-set diamonds, and she wrote down the words `platinum' and `size six' and `BIG' and `SOON.' " This is a delightful exploration of the empowerment that comes from escaping a Big Love turned Bad Love. 5-city author tour. Agent, Nicholas Ellison. (July 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Mustard errand gone horribly wrong. Sitcom writer (Murphy Brown, Spin City) Dunn's first novel is breathy and hurried, as if a self-absorbed friend (just a garden-variety narcissist, with some empathic abilities) were crying in her Cosmo. So what's stopping our narratrix Alison Hopkins from finding "Big Love," especially after getting her cheese moved by her long-term boyfriend and cohabitant, Tom Hathaway, he of the ugly leather couch he didn't consult her about before buying? During their couple-affirming dinner party, Tom, sent out by Alison for Dijon, phones back to tell her that not only does the store not have any Grey Poupon but he no longer has room for her in his heart. That constricted space has been taken up by the lovely Kate, his ex-college flame reignited. Cut loose, Alison can wallow once more in her old-virgin misery (raised as an evangelical Christian, her deflowering was postponed until age 25, leaving her congenitally insensitive to pheromones and come-hithers) and hone diatribes for the column she writes for a Philly alternative paper. Rants abound on Romantic Market Value, the mating disadvantages faced by Christian women, and the unfair backlash against "Old Mothers," women who dare to have children after 30 in defiance of that Time magazine article. A self-styled late bloomer at 32, Alison will have a fling with her managing editor, lose her column to a less competent but sluttier writer, and ruminate amply and far-too-many-other-adverbs-ly about the obsessions she shares with the busy and fulfilled girlfriends who nevertheless always have time for long wine-soaked grudge-fests or impromptu pregnancy tests. Glib dialogue keeps the story humming along, although even the most seasoned chick-lit fan will find its men improbably fickle, even for guys. The backstory is more arresting than the formulaic plot: an ironic insider's take on born-agains may be just the thing for readers left behind. No big love or surprises here. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Alison Hopkins is devastated when her live-in boyfriend, Tom, walks out of their dinner party and back into the arms of his ex-girlfriend, Kate. Tom is only 33-year-old Alison's second lover, and she wonders if she wouldn't be better off if she had slept with more men. So when Henry, her handsome new boss at the free daily Philadelphia paper for which she writes a relationship column, seems interested in her, Alison seizes the opportunity. However, being a carefree girl-about-town isn't as easy as Alison thought, and she soon finds herself in Henry's office asking him about the state of their relationship. Alison's friend Nina promises Tom will come crawling back to her, but is that really what she wants? Musing on everything from her evangelical Christian upbringing to men behaving badly (and just how long this stage lasts), Alison's engaging voice carries this thoughtful, introspective, smart novel along and raises it far above the average novel about a young woman looking for love in the big city. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Newly dumped Allison remakes herself, demonstrating a touching belief that she'll find her "big love." Lots of foreign rights sales and a big author tour recommend this first novel from a staff writer for Murphy Brown and other shows. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
