Back In the Game

I read Babyland by Holly Chamberlin and hated it because all of the characters were so unlikable and shallow. But "Back in the Game" definitely struck a nerve, mainly because the author doesn't hold back in illustrating the world of divorce and what it's like to "be back out there" and dating in your 30s and 40s. Sometimes the book is so brutally honest you cringe reading it, but I couldn't put it down. Also, the author makes a point of not tying everything up in a neat bow; not all of the characters end up happy or with a man at the end of the novel and I think it made the book stronger and more memorable. I enjoyed the character of Grace the best. I've known leeches like her ex-husband, and despite Simon's way-out personality, men like him do exist. Like other reviewers, I couldn't stand Laura, mainly because it was hard to believe she was a bona fide adult, she was just so dense and childlike in her approach to life. She wasn't necessarily a nice person, either, so you don't always feel sorry for her. Jess, on the other hand, was the least interesting...she keeps wondering why she married her football-obsessed husband and the author never answers that question. Perhaps that was Chamberlin's intent--and why this novel will stay with you for a long time.

In Boston, the four women are recently divorced, but not as upset by the split as expected. Perhaps that is because the quartet knows that fifty percent of that sacred institution that need amendments to keep pure end up broken. Each of the women is concerned whether to dive into the icy depths of dating. Matt and Jess Marlowe married in love, but divorced in hate as she became an adulteress. Richard and Nell Keats stayed together through two decades plus and two children until he informed her he loved Bob Landry. Laura (Nell's sister) and Duncan Costello disagreed vehemently over having children as she wanted rugrats while he wanted to remain a dink (double income no kids) family. Grace and Simon Henley ended their marital relationship because he slept with others, but she still supports him financially and emotionally especially when he breaks up with his latest flavor of the hour These four single females want to take Boston like a northeasterner, but that dive into the harbor is so frightening yet each takes the plunge seeking the right man or men this time around. The ensemble lead female cast rotates perspective in this fine look at relationships after the marriage is over. That approach provides the reader with a wider scope of reactions, but also feels slightly disjointed. Though well written with interesting protagonists struggling with to date or not to date, the aptly titled BACK IN THE GAME would have been better suited as four novellas to ease tracking of the stars, all of whom are worth knowing. Harriet Klausner