(Sphere, $34.99)Holly Frick is 35 and bewildered that life is not working out the way she thought it would. Her husband has divorced her, her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is stalking her, her closest gal pal is disappointing her and, what’s worse, she has been talked into going shopping for jeans. Here’s what she says to the salesgirl about that: “okay. Listen to me. I don’t want to go back into that dressing room and take off my boots and my pants and start putting on jeans only to discover the ones you brought me are all too tight and then, when I ask for the next size up, be informed that they’re the biggest size you carry. I can’t take that today. Seriously, I’ll blow my head off.”
If you’ve ever had a day like that, you’ll love this book. It’s sort of a cross between Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City and the 1980s New York stories written by Tama Janowitz. Anyone remember those? She cornered the market in lovelorn oanhattan wannabes striking it small in the Big Apple. I loved those books – they made me want to go to New York and be ignored at swanky parties – and Holly’s world has a similar allure.
I might want to give some of her small, mildly intertwined circle of friends a good slapping as they seek love and happiness in different ways and with varying degrees of success. But Holly herself? She’s a laugh-out-loud funny heroine and a dog-lover to boot. In the absence of having Holly herself to sit down and have a cocktail with, Secrets to Happiness might just provide the perfect alternative. It’s a witty, warm book written by Sarah Dunn who it turns out was also behind the writing of some of TV’s funniest sitcoms: ourphy Brown, Spin City and Veronica’s Closet.
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