The Men I Didn't Marry by Janice Kaplan

The Men I Didn't Marry Reviews

• 
  Christina

  Endlich ist es vorbei🙈. Dieses Buch war wirklich ein einziges Klischee. Ich habe es für meinen Buchclub gelesen. Aber es gehört zu der Sorte, bei der es ausreicht, nur die wörtliche Rede zu lesen, um der Geschichte folgen zu können 🙄. Die beiden Sterne gibt es für den flüssigen Schreibstil und weil es mich gelegentlich doch zum Lachen und nicht nur zum Augenrollen brachte.
• 
  LauraSt

  5 AMAZINGLY FUNNY AND ENTERTAINING STARS!
  
  *Re-read for GR.
  
  These authors are just amazing, I love their books and their writing, their characters and plots. It's amazing I can't get enough, only thing that would make this better is if we had a sequel or a shortie if the future. Pretty please.
  
  So we have Hallie Lawrence Pierpont, after leaving her youngest daughter in Yale, her husband Bill doesn't even wait to get home before announcing that he's leaving her for a fitness trainer named Ashlee. After succumbing to an Oreo induced coma, Hallie is determined to get her life back on track, an unexpected call from an old college love sets plans in motion and so this story starts. Whatever did happen to those old boyfriends? All the men I didn’t marry? It just may be time to find out.
  
  The cookies taste much better this way, and I’m pretty sure the freezing process kills off the calories. Plus everybody knows that any food you eat standing up doesn’t count.
  
  
  
  This was such a funny and uplifting story, you find yourself laughing from the moment the story starts, it's an adventure that you can't help but feel addicted to, it's amazing.
  
  Time stops and I stand frozen. For a moment, the whole world goes silent and the only sound I hear is a bird off in the distance, with a persistent, mournful call: You’ll be alone you’ll be alone you’ll be alone.
  But I can’t even think about that possibility. Anyway, what does a bird know?
  
  The secondary characters are great, Bellini -Hallie's best friend- is witty and free and happy; the kids, are wonderful, and I hope I have kids like that some day lol; Kevin is fucking gorgeous in my mind, I adore him though I knew he wasn't going to end up with Hallie in the end, and I had this nagging feeling from the beginning that Tom HAD to end making an appearance and the ex's too, gosh even Bill was amusing in his mid-life-crisis way!
  
  
  
  Bellini shakes her head at my awkwardness. “You’re hopeless. But if you’re not going to talk to Tom, let’s cruise.”
  “Did you really just say ‘Tom’ and ‘cruise’ in the same sentence?”
  “Not on purpose,” Bellini grins. “But Tom Cruise. That could be our secret code when we’re meeting men. Girlfriend talk for ‘Let’s go find someone else.’ ”
  
  ~
  
  Apparently I saved money in a 529 plan all those years so my daughter could go to Yale—and learn to do laundry and have sex.
  
  A MUST READ
• 
  Emlikescake

  Hello. It’s me. At home on a long weekend reading books I am 95% sure I won’t like but doing it anyway in a bid to cast off another week of fuckery at work. It worked! So if you too need to turn off your brain for a few hours, this book might help. Maybe. Possibly.
• 
  Tiah

  I enjoy a thoughtless funny book every now and again. This was a perfect mix of comedy and "oh my god, this is my life" moments!
• 
  Barbara Cozens

  This book was a fun and easy read. It was witty and playful. It made me think (and cringe) about the men I didn't marry.
• 
  Cheryl

  Chick Lit. A fun, quick read.
• 
  Valerie

  This is just a fun read. It won't change your life. It won't really make you think...although the authors do try and throw in a bit of be grateful for what you have, etc...it was fun to read and I did enjoy it. The book does have a lot of totally unbelievable coincidences but...if you can get through that then it's fun to read! Enjoy!
• 
  Lisa Harris

  This book warmed my heart. I especially liked reading a story about a women closer to my age. I was a bit worried that the story would take an ugly turn when the character seemed to be reconsidering her ex husband, but it all worked out well. Thank goodness. : )
• 
  Jean Alfieri

  Not light but certainly entertaining. Full of emotional twists and turns. Love strong women characters and this book delivers them!
• 
  Elle

  Such an entertaining read. Hallie drops off her daughter and Yale and before she even gets to the car, he is breaking up with her after decades of being married. He drives to Manhattan even though they live in the suburbs. So this jerk drives to an apartment in Manhattan and leaves her the car and says that he lives in the apartment with his girlfriend, Ashlee. She is a young personal trainer that he met with the Equinox membership his wife bought him.
  
  Hallie spends some time just trying to deal with the separation and what it means to be in her forties and suddenly single. She decides to go on a hike and has a horrible time. She falls and is bitten by ants and wasps. She gets lost and a handsome friendly stranger helps her. It so happens that he is the best friend of her first love. She ends up going on a date with him and it makes her wonder about the exes that she didn't marry.
  
  She goes to an ashran and meets the European love she had who went with her across Europe. She finds that he is some Yogi and is doing well. She finds out why he never tried to have sex with her all of those years ago.
  
  Kevin she has to go to a remote tropical island to find. She books herself a tip to go by herself but her adult children surprise her by showing up. Her plans to meet up with her high school boyfriend is sabotaged. He is resentful as he takes Angelina Jolie out with them as they go out scuba diving. She ends up making it up to him and stays on the island much much longer than she intended.
  
  There is still one love she can't confront but she is finding herself by finding who she was and learning how to move on to be who she is now.
• 
  Page Passion

  A nice, entertaining escape from reality about a woman whose husband just leaves her suddenly and trying to figure where to go from there. Hallie thinks the secret to feeling happy again may be in one of the men she didn't marry, but the lesson in this book is that oftentimes the path not taken was for a reason. Pretty witty book, but as another review pointed out there is a point in story about sister that seems very random and then is quickly resolved, making the reader question why authors added that plotline in the first place. Though I hate using the term "chick-lit," since it demeans books written for women by women, but this chick-lit was surprisingly poignant in its message about not dwelling on the past because you don't know where life may lead.
• 
  Karissa

  Took nearly a month to knock this one out. It read like a tween book wanting desperately to be for adults.
  
  My pet peeve is elongation for no purpose. The language was simple so there was no reason for 300 pages.
  The first page hooked me, but the rest of the 299 pages were garbage. Romance is not my genre, as I would relearn, so I would absolutely not recommend. But maybe you’ll like it? (Probably not)
• 
  Dana

  I really enjoyed, "The Men I Didn't Marry" by Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger. The novel is well written, at times extremely funny, and always engaging. It is a typical story of a long term marriage meeting its demise when the nest empties out, the kids are all away at college, and the husband decides to replace his devoted wife with a much younger version of her.
  Hallie loves her husband Bill. At the start of their novel, the couple drops their youngest child, daughter Emily, at Yale for her first semester. Then, when driving home, Bill seems to be making a side stop when, actually, he is staying where he has stopped, in an apartment in New York City with a young woman named Ashlee (note the double e's, which tell Hallie this woman HAS to be very young). Hallie was completely caught off guard. She has been a loving wife and thought they were both happy. She is an attorney, so she will not be out the street or have to sell the family home, but that does not mean she is not lost and devastated. She does not leave the house for weeks, and when she does, she sets off to find the men she dated in the past, to see if there could be anything left, and if is, worth bringing back to life.
  In Hallie's adventures, there are some very funny moments, some surprises, even a second chance at love, but sometimes the choices we made when young, were good ones, and we should listen to our younger selves.
  I would never have known there were two authors as the writing was seamless and swift moving. I loved the hours I spent with my head in this book.Hallie is a wonderful woman, with two relatable young adult kids who really do love her, even when they keep some secrets of their own.
  Fun book about one woman's ability to start over at mid-life, not letting a man take her joy away forever!
• 
  Caitlyn

  I really didn’t expect this book to be more than just a book for a middle aged woman to talk about her past love life and get all cliche about chances we miss when we’re young but it was so much more than that. Sure there was a fair share of cliche (especially with her best friend) but nothing over powering.
  
  This book was so nice to read at the time in my life where I’m going through boys like that (snaps fingers Lol) like Hallie is looking back on. I get to see things from her (or my) POV twenty years in the future. And I love books that make me question and challenge my current POV.
  
  And I LOVE the way the book ends and that doesn’t happen often.
  
  The author does a really good job connecting pieces she slipped in early in the book at the end too which is always appreciated.
• 
  Jen

  I wanted to like this book more, but there were so many false starts, with Hallie repeatedly committing some huge goof or other just as things got going. I get it. Life is messy. Things aren't perfect, but getting ready to settle into her giving Ashlee a good telling-off, only to mistakenly hand her a Sam's Club card, instead of a family photo... and a few other such instances... that was really discouraging. I did feel the book picked up nicely about halfway through, and I enjoyed reading about the time spent on Virgin Gorda- though the arrival of Hallie's kids was really annoying. Again, I get it, the reader is experiencing the same thing the main character is going through, but still...
  
  The BYOB party was a fun twist and a nice way for things to come to a close, though!
• 
  Olivia Jacques

  I wanted to like this, I really did. And if I had read it when it first came out back in 2006 (ugh, I’m getting old) I might have. Back in the day I was a complete sucker for what I think of as SATC-era chick-lit. Unfortunately I think the moment has just … passed. What used to read as cute and relatable lady content now feels a bit like spoiled, tone-deaf, rich NYC Boomer ⚪️ women complainining. Cluelessly. It felt like reading a too-close-to-reality parody of my mother-in-law. I just couldn’t relate. This is NOT a slam on the the writing or even the story, really — because maybe it’s your thing. It did have a few funny moments. I just think some fiction like this hasn’t aged well. It goes stale. Alas!
• 
  Dawn

  This book was all over the place. I didn’t like any of the characters, most of them seemed b*tchy and whiny. And why is Hallie friends with all these vapid chicks but doesn’t seem to have people to hang out with a lot of the time? If she is such a strong, professional woman then why is she so bothered when she has a little time alone? And how in the world does she not get fired?!?
  
  Thoughts during the reading of this insult to chick lit:
  Pages 163-164 (as well as later), lawyer-client privilege must not be a valid concern to Hallie.
  
  Pages 229-231, don’t witnesses need to be sworn in for any testimony to be used in court?!? Just because she is Angelina Jolie, all of that is thrown to the wind? Well there’s a mistrial waiting to happen. 🤦‍♀️
  
  This book sucked.
• 
  Diego Martins

  Último livro lido de 2019. Foi uma boa leitura, o livro é divertido. Na deadline diz "É muito engraçado. Eu amei!" não achei tão engrado assim.
  As histórias entorno dos reencontros da Hallie são boas, mas acho que as autoras quiseram por muitas coisas e inflar algumas. A história do Dick é muito superficial para estar no final do livro, as autoras quiseram criar um drama, mas elas se perdem na história em Virgem Gorda. Eu fiquei com muito medo de no final e a Hallie fazer besteira, mas ainda bem que ela não fez.
  É um chick lit gostosinho de ler, mas não é meu preferido.
• 
  Vanessa Nikolaus

  I really enjoyed this book. It was light, funny and witty all rolled into one. The authors did a great job of keeping the story to the point but with enough depth that you really got what the main character was feeling. I may have laughed out loud a couple of times and would recommend this to anyone who doesn't want anything too complicated & hard to follow.
• 
  Ruth Santana Valencia

  Un libro muy femenino donde vas de la risa, a la reflexión y al coraje, etc.
  Si eres mujer en la edad media o recien divorciada o soltera este libro es para ti.
  Muy divertido.
• 
  Carrie Marston-Jennings

  Another cute, fast read. I loved the scenery.
• 
  Karolyna Foret

  Good easy read.
  Book goes through phases of lacking detail. While revisiting her past boyfriends, the author cut one visit to half a chapter while another got half the book
  
• 
  Ping

  I'm curious to know how the authors summarized all those exes in 285 pages. I'm in with whatever it is that is a quick read.