Manless in Montclair
by Amy Holman Edelman
Published by Shaye Areheart Books
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Jamie Driggers
Subtitled: How a Happily Married Woman Became a Widow Looking for Love in the Wilds of Suburbia
When Isabel went out to get her teeth whitened, she didn’t know that she would return to a life she couldn’t recognize. Husbands shouldn’t die unexpectedly, leaving their happily married wives as widows. And young daughters shouldn’t request a new daddy for Chanukah. Where is a suburban woman supposed to find love when she thought she was out of the dating pool for good?
Manless in Montclair is a fictionalized account of Amy Holman Edelman’s own journey. Sudden widowhood was bad enough, but finding a new daddy for her girls through 21st Century dating had its own challenges. When internet dating, dating services and speed dating didn’t work, she tried an email blast offering a free trip to the person who found her next husband.
In a journey back and forth through time, from dating her husband, through their relationship to his sudden death, we get to know what makes Isabel tick. She isn’t just another woman desperate for a man; she is a mother desperate to honor her daughter’s wishes. You have to laugh at her antics while also feeling sorry for her situation.
I admit that the time travel in the beginning of the book was disconcerting. It took a while before I felt relatively confident about what was going on. It also felt like we spent most of the book in about two weeks worth of time and then went into hyper speed because of the method. Also, East Coasters will probably better relate with this book than Midwesterners as many topics were rather foreign to me (I’ve been in the burbs my whole life). But overall, it did work, so give her a chance and stay with her.
Manless in Montclair is a witty and heartbreaking story of coping with sudden change.
Author’s Web site: http://www.AmyEdelman.com