Twenty-one Truths About Love

You've heard of list-icles. Now meet the list-ovel... list-novel? Anyway, I didn't know how this format was going to work out in telling a story but it's been an entertaining ride. Dan, who agonises about leaving his stable teaching job to open a book store, write lists as a coping mechanism. When you list down everything, you can still tell a fairly decent story. So Dan's wife Jill got pregnant and this sends him into a secret panic mode because the book store was not making money and babies cost a lot. He had to come up with money before their child arrives. This list of a book managed to sketch out the relationship between him and Jill, his employees at the book store, and his attempts to raise cash. Pretty fun read.

This eARC of ‘Twenty-one Truths About Love' is courtesy of NetGalley.

Ah, I like this one.

Mind you, it's very Bridget-Jones-ish and it can get repetitive. But it's also...I don't know, sincere? The character comes across as completely and totally genuine and his worries are completely and totally...well, worrisome. It's set with school teachers as characters and they, too, are believably real.

Dan has issues, lots of issues, more and more with every page as you read along, and he's in a mess, and he can't think of a way out. He quit his secure job as a teacher in which he was wildly unhappy and unsuited and started his own bookstore business which is also floundering. His wife wants a baby but he's not sure he will be much of a dad.

So he starts this book of lists, and it's funny and sad and everything we like in a book.

Haven't overcome the magic of Milo but it's cute and sweet.

I stopped on page 8 and sent the book back to Amazon but declined a refund because I deserved to be punished for ordering it.

Ok this is a hard one to review. It's more of a 3.5 rounded to a 4. I really wanted to like this one more but I had such a hard time getting over the style. It's a book...full of nothing but lists. BUT...

That being said my heart ached for Dan and the dilemma he faces. He is achingly honest and open. I laughed a lot at some parts along his journey and hurt with him along others. The way this is written reminds me of how I think throughout my days, most often scattered and trying to keep on task. I would wager a majority of us are like this as well.

I would suggest multiple breaks in reading this one, especially if you get annoyed with all the lists the way I did. If it wasn't for that it would be more of a 4 stars solid.

3.5 stars. I give Matthew Dicks props for managing to tell a coherent, cohesive story through lists, even if the idea of someone writing EVERYTHING down like Dan does strains credulity. He does get a little hokey towards the end, and his answer to white middle aged, middle class male angst seems to be nothing more than “go ahead, have a baby.” Plus although he does an admirable job of building a few memorable secondary characters given the structure limitation, Dan's wife Jill is not one of them. I wish she had been given a more well-developed character than “sexy widow who doesn't put away the laundry and wants a baby.”

Not sure I would want to read more of this author's work if it didn't have a gimmick like this, but I did enjoy this one.

Twenty-one Thoughts About Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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NOVEMBER 48:10 AM

5 Problems with Lying
1. We lie most often to the people we love.
2. There is no greater shame than getting caught in a lie.
3. A lie often requires additional lies, making it impossible to ever come clean.
4. Liars are the worst human beings.
5. Lies always cover up the worst parts of you.

NOVEMBER 48:40 AM

How liars with the best intentions are like the owners of every iteration of Jurassic Park
They never set out to hurt anyone.
They operate with enormous hubris.
Denial both perpetuates and intensifies the problem.
The situation inevitably gets worse and worse as time goes by.
The end is never pretty.