Breaking up is always hard to do, but gets marginally easier with fresh and touching reads like Melissa Senate's The Breakup Club (RDI, 2006) to guide you through the sleepless, mascara-smeared haze.
I stumbled upon this book by accident, and was hesitant to start reading it since I've had a shoddy success rate with RDIs--I find I'm usually disappointed by them because they fall short of the promises of glamorous reality embedded in the back cover blurb.
Lucy, Chris(topher), Miranda and Roxy all work at Bold Books in NYC, and all are dealing with heartache. Lucy learns her husband's New Year's resolution is to leave her; Chris's wife has left him for an upstate yuppie and Chris is doing all he can to be the best father possible to his infant daughter; Miranda is still being left by boyfriends who can't understand they're the One; and Roxy leaves her childhood sweetheart at the altar, back in Brooklyn.
Though I loved the setting (Manhattan) and the characters' industry of choice (publishing), it was really the realistic depictions about the nature and longevity of relationships that won me over.
In the light of reality, sometimes you just don't get that happy ending, and I appreciated Senate's treatment of Chris's and Lucy's failing marriages. (And, might I add, how great was it to have a male protagonist who wasn't trying to seduce anyone!) I think Roxy was my favourite character because she really gave herself the space necessary to figure what and who she wanted; she had a subtle strength about her that I admired. I thought the dialogue between Lucy and her teenage daughter rang true, and I found myself really wanting things to work out for the characters at the end. Finally, the pacing of the story was good, though I felt certain plot points could've been investigated or been explained more fully.
Though it didn't deliver a lot of Upper West Side adornment (more East Village), I definitely recommend this RDI--you won't be disappointed!
