sarah

The pitch for this book is AMAZING: Hilary Winston is in a Barnes & Noble one day and picks up a book by her ex-boyfriend, only to realize that one of the main characters in his novel is HER. That's all it took for me to 100% want to read this book.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't fully satisfy. Winston gives us dozens of short chapters, each one telling one vignette, usually about her love life. The longest parts are about "Kyle" (Chad Kultgen), the author of the instigating novel, with whom she had her longest and most seriouos relationship. Other chapters are short, and a few are just one sentence. The tension of the book is the unfinished business with Kyle, and tactfully she manages that situation right before the end of the book. I think the book would have been more engaging if it were written as one long narrative, rather than in slices.

[ETA: I now know that this is the same structure as The Average American Male, so maybe that's why she made this choice.]

I think that Hilary Winston's talent for writing for television really shows, and it occurred to me that if the book were delivered as a monologue, many of the lines would be really funny. In fact, she could probably rework the book into stand-up comedy material. Although, to be honest, I hope she is already long past the events that caused her to write it.

The book is likeable, not lovable, but in the end I'm glad I read it and not The Average American Male. I think I could be friends with Hilary Winston. And if I were, I would constantly remind her that Chad Kultgen is a vulgar hack, whereas she is smart and funny and deserves to be with someone who actually likes her.