Review: The Big Love by Sarah Dunn

Last word first: I liked it. But it wasn't the Big Love for me.

Description: Alison Hopkins sends her live-in boyfriend, Tom, out for mustard in the middle of a dinner party. Instead of returning, he calls and tells her he's in love with someone else and he's not coming back. Needless to say, Alison needs to reevaluate a few things about her life.

My thoughts: I liked the sound of this story. After all, anything as awful as having your significant other break up with you by phone call in the middle of a dinner party should make for a good story, right? But the book didn't quite live up to expectations.

My biggest problem with the story is the amount of time Alison spends griping about her evangelical Christian upbringing. I agree, evangelical Christians can make great griping material (even though I am one), and it was pretty funny at first, but the griping went on and on and on to the point where I was kind of bored with it. You could argue that I didn't like it because I felt insulting by it subconsciously, but I really don't think that's it. She just whines a lot.

On the plus side, I really did like Alison the rest of the time. She's exactly the type of quirkily entertaining character that I always find myself rooting for. And I loved the way the story was wrapped up, but I won't give anything away about it.

The Big Love reminded me of another book I read recently, The Prairie Bridesmaid. Both books deal with women in their thirties who are emerging from bad relationships and trying to figure out how to deal with their new single identities... finding it much more difficult when everyone they know is in a relationship. They are both funny books with sad themes, and if you enjoyed one, I recommend the other one for you.

About Sarah Dunn: After college, she wrote a humor column for the Philadelphia City Paper while waiting tables (poorly) at TGI Fridays. When she was 24, she published The Official Slacker Handbook, and was subsequently lured out to Hollywood to write for Murphy Brown, Spin City and Veronica’s Closet. She left TV to work on her first novel, The Big Love. She is currently writing a television pilot for NBC called George & Hilly, and her long-awaited second novel, Secrets to Happiness, comes out this spring. She is married to Peter Stevenson, the executive editor of The New York Observer, and they have a chunky delicious new baby boy named Harry. (from her website)

Click the book cover image to purchase from Amazon.