How to Be Single, by Liz Tuccillo
First line: “I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN.”
Tuccillo, co-author of the run-away hit dating advice book, He’s Just Not That Into You, makes her novel debut in this tale about how, not why, women are single around the world. The premise, that is to say the title and back cover blurb, sucked me in. A little mind globe-trotting sounded like a nice way to kill some hours at the neighborhood pool. Unfortunately, Tuccillo couldn’t pull off the dream settings – Paris, Rome, Rio and more, which get sparse, simplistic descriptions. A writer’s job is to take the reader there, and I sadly never got to leave the pool. The characters may as well have been cardboard cut-outs sitting next to me on lounge chairs for as well as I got to know them. It’s no Sex and the City, though there is plenty of sex to be had in the novel and every character curses like a sailor. The bland, uneven prose is lifted by some intriguing dialogue and a few witty scenes. Tuccillo does have some spot-on observations about single life in society these days, but it takes much more than that to string together a story worthy of a $22 ticket to ride.
For: Single women, who hopefully are not as desperate as the ones in the pages therein. – Malena Lott
