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Friday, June 12, 2009

Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn - Blog Tour


Book Description:

Holly Frick has just endured the worst kind of breakup: the kind where you're still in love with the person leaving you. While her wounds are still dangerously close to the surface, her happily married best friend confesses over a bottle of wine that she is this close to having an affair. And another woman comes to Holly for advice about her love life--with Holly's ex!

Holly decides that if everyone around her can take pleasure wherever they find it, so will she. As any self-respecting 30ish New York woman would do, she brings two males into her life: a flawed but endearing dog, and a good natured, much younger lover. She's soon entangled in a web of emails, chance meetings, and misguided good intentions and must forge an entirely new path to Nirvana.

From the author of The Big Love, Secrets to Happiness is a big-hearted, knife-sharp, and hilariously entertaining story about the perils of love and friendship, sex and betrayal--and a thoroughly modern take on our struggle to be happy.


My Review: TAKE TWO.

I am so bummed. I have to write this without notes or thoughts from my desk here at work. ( Lesson learned... do not edit blog post in bed at 4:20 am)

I enjoyed the book. I thought the story was quite different from what the cover portrayed. But I was glad that it didn't have a typical cartoon-y type chick-lit-y cover.

I thought the author wrote a contemporary relevant story. I was excited to read a book so current. I love current buzz about things in my everyday life such as Blackberry phones and what not. I enjoyed all the characters (which I had named in my previous post). I enjoyed the stories of all the people in the book. The book was about real life, marriage, affairs, divorce, babies, weddings, heartbreak, pets and moving on.

The cover ties in to a part of the story that I could have had embellished a little more as I love dogs, but since there was a LOT to cover in a short book it worked.

There were a lot of characters in a short little book. They were flawed, human and most were likable, even if they were misguided and made serious mistakes with serious consequences. I liked that it wasn't drawn out. It was great to just let several weeks pass in the story without every minor detail. I loved that about this book. I like to keep these stories moving.

I was in the mood for an adult book with adult themes. I didn't mind the sexual content or the language. However it was not entirely key to the story so I can see how some may not appreciate it. Personally I don't mind a little frank language and grit. :)

So I think it is a fun book. I enjoyed it. It was different than other books I have read lately. It is a very quick read. Enjoy!

Thank you Miriam from Hachette books for organizing our Tour and the review copy.

Check out some of the Blog Tours. Lots of Giveaways and Reviews.

15 comments:

Toni said...

Oh darn...where are my links to the other participants? Will update soon..thanks for stopping by.

Jo-Jo said...

Thanks for the great review Toni...I think I definitely want to be reading this one!

Serena said...

I really liked this book too, though some of the sort of background checks on the characters were distracting for me, but not so much that it ruined the book for me.

Overall, I enjoyed this book.
I have a giveaway for 3 copies of this one up for grabs on my blog in case your readers are interested.

http://www.savvyverseandwit.com/2009/06/secrets-to-happiness-by-sarah-dunn.html

Luanne said...

Out of all the books we've done on Early Birds - this was the first miss for me. I just didn't connect with the book at all..... :(

Jess said...

This book is getting a lot of blogger love recently. It looks like a fun read. Toni, I love the new layout -- looks great!

Darlene said...

What happened to the rest Toni? lol. I'll come back later.

Toni said...

omg.. blogger ate my review.. I am so sad.....

Anonymous said...

HATE it when that happens! Blogger is mean! Thanks for posting despite technical difficulties. :)

Toni said...

Okay.. whew.. I wrote a version of my review. My fault. Man I had the book read a week a head of time with my review set to post..and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

bermudaonion said...

I'm glad you enjoyed this one and I'm sorry you had such struggles posting your review!

Darlene said...

I'm glad you got your post up Toni. I don't mind the grit either, just for me it didn't seem to suit this book. Anyhow I would definitely read more by her. I did like her writing style. Great review even with being put on the spot. lol.

Toni said...

Thank you Dar and everyone! The tour has been great for me to read a lot of the quotes.. and see what people liked and didn't like. I am off to read more Blog tour posts.

Anna said...

I just love the cover. Glad to hear you enjoyed this one.

--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric

Jenny Girl said...

First I just love the dog on the cover. And you know I love dogs.
Not my typical book but your review convinced me to add it to the tbr.

Misusedinnocence said...

Love this cover so much! ;) Can't wait to read it! Hope I win!

misusedinnocence@aol.com