Starting from Square Two
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
Gert Healy thought she was finished with dating. She thought she'd be picking out strollers and booties for the children she and her husband were planning to have. Instead, she's mourning his loss and coming to terms with being a widow at twenty-nine.
It's been over a year now, and her friends have convinced her it's time to get back into the swing of things (even though looking for love is the last thing she wants to do). Although they've developed many a dating rule between them, now that Gert's a part of their single-girl crew, she's beginning to realize they don't know the first thing about men. Of course, Gert doesn't know the first thing about dating, since she married her college sweetheart, so maybe joining forces will work out after all. But does Gert have it in her to fight her way through the leather-jacketed and miniskirted crowds in search of a second miracle?
It's back to square one on everything. Well, actually she's done it all before. Square two, then.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Everything comes easily to Gert Healy: dating, love, marriage. But when her husband, Marc, dies in a car accident, 29-year-old Gert must search for happily ever after again. A morbid take on romantic comedy, to be sure, but in Lissner's hands, Gert's story is poignant, sweet and smart. Gert re-enters the dating world with the help of her college roommate, Hallie, and Hallie's high school friend Erika. Erika and Hallie moan about the difficulties of dating, but Gert finds a wonderful man on her first foray into New York City's notorious singles scene. Todd, a sensitive young train conductor, differs from the sharp-edged Marc, and Gert finds herself falling into a different kind of love with him. She hashes out her inevitable feelings of guilt with the members of her young widows support group. Marc died only a few days before September 11, a plot device Lissner does not exploit, but uses sensitively to broaden the scope of the book. Hallie and Erika grapple more shrilly with their unbearable singlehood especially Erika, who broke up with her college sweetheart and now faces the agony of hearing about his charmed life on his wife's Web log. Though Lissner's supporting characters aren't as nuanced as the appealing Gert, even Hallie and Erika gain depth as the novel builds to a thoughtful conclusion. Lissner's sturdy prose and sympathetic, detailed evocation of young widowhood makes this a solid entry in the genre.
