Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Chick Lit/Women’s Fiction
Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words
Availability
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Author:
A native of
New Jersey, Dee Ernst starting writing stories on a typewriter in her pre-teen
years. Graduating from high school, she was set on a career that involved
writing. After many false starts over many years in journalism, education, and
other related fields, she heard a radio guest say that if you didn’t know what
you wanted to do with your life to remember what you enjoyed when you were ten
and find a way to make it into a career. This book is part of the result of
acting on that advice.
For more,
visit Ernst’s website.
Description:
“Mona
Berman is an expert at Happily Ever After – after all, she’s a best-selling
Romance writer and happy endings are what she does best. So when her husband of
twenty years leaves her for somebody 15 years younger, 20 pounds lighter, and
French, she’s got a lot of adjusting to do, both personally and professionally.
Lucky for her she’s got three savvy teen daughters, a few good friends, and
Ben, the world’s sexiest plumber, to help her along the way.”
Appraisal:
Better Off Without Him is one of the funniest chick-lit
books I’ve read in recent memory. Ernst starts with a great cast of characters:
the protagonist, Mona, is a strong woman with a great talent for recognizing
the humor in life, even in negative experiences. She has to be, with her three
teenage daughters, each with unique personalities that keep Mona guessing and
with the typical teen problems of being on the cusp of adulthood (with some
very adult like insights), yet still needing parental direction. Mona’s friends
each have their own quirks that spice up the story as they provide Mona
support.
As Mona
works through her own issues with her soon-to-be-ex and eases into life as an
unattached woman, she changes her next book from Romance to something else,
which turns out to be a book that mirrors and foreshadows many of her own
experiences. Despite docking a star for many minor, but too pervasive proofing
problems, I would still highly recommend Better
Off Without Him for fans of the genre who are able to ignore those issues.
FYI:
Some adult
language and sexual situations although never explicit.
Format/Typo Issues:
A large
number of minor proofing and copy-editing misses. These include missing little
words and incorrect words due to typos (i.e. ‘if’ instead of ‘of’, ‘though’
instead of thought’).
Rating: **** Four stars
2 comments:
Oh, I have this one in my TBR list, I thought it sounded entertaining. Thanks for the warning about the editing. This is good to know before I start reading it.
I hope the author take updates the editing before I get to it though.
Thanks Al.
Wow! Good things do come to those who wait! I'd almost given up of getting this review - I was actually checking to see if you reviewed my new book. Thanks so much for this - really.
And yeah, about those typos...no excuses, I was just suffering from the most common new-writer affliction, which is ignorance. I didn't realize the importance of those highly-paid professional proofreaders.
I can never get that star back (and a 5 star from Big Al would have been SWEET) but I can tell your readers that changes have been made...revisions have been done...people have been paid...and what's out there now is a much cleaner product.
Thanks Big Al - a 4 star from you is an honor.
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