Title: The Men I Didn’t Marry

Author: Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger

ISBN: 0-345-49070-3

What if you had a chance to revisit the most important loves of your life, to try to fix what went wrong and maybe have another chance at romance with them? Would you be willing to go back and revisit your past, a do over, if you will? In Janice Kaplan and Lynn Schnurnberger’s book, The Men I Didn’t Marry, their main protagonist, Hallie Lawrence Piermont does just that.

Mere moments after dropping off their youngest daughter at college, Hallie’s husband Bill broadsides her with the news that he’s leaving her for a younger, perkier fitness trainer. After recovering from shock and detoxing from Oreo’s, Hallie starts to put her life back together and is contacted out of the blue by an old college boyfriend. After a night of what her life could have been with him, she decides to embark on the journey to see what has happened to all the other men she could have, but didn’t marry. This journey takes Hallie from Eric, 225 on Forbes “Richest People in the World” list, to Rav Jon Yoma Maharashi, formerly known as Barry, to Virgin Gorda where Kevin, the “sexiest man she ever met” is a scuba-diving photographer working on the latest Angelina Jolie movie to her greatest love that she swore she would never see again.

Through this journey Hallie understands how each of these men helped her grow and better understand the person she has become while also being able to finally resolve an old family secret and reconcile with her long-estranged sister.

Kaplan and Schnurnberger portray a woman who has had the rug pulled out from under her and has to start over as a single woman as someone who the reader could be friends with if not actually the character herself. They portray the relearning of the tried and true pitfalls of dating, not to mention the new hazards to keep in mind in the age of Internet dating, with a tongue planted firmly in cheek and a healthy dose of humor to the absurdity of the whole process.

The only thing that didn’t sit well with me with the story was the initial revisit of the old flames. It just seemed forced into the story just to have some way to start off this quest. Leading up to that point and everything following I thought created a believable story of having to look back to really be able to find yourself after everything you have known for so long was put into question. Just that chapter alone almost seemed to come from an entirely different story and in a way I feel I could have skipped it altogether and still be an enjoyable story.

The above review was contributed by: Jennifer Murray Somerset:  BFA in Graphic Design, and BS Legal Assistant Studies:    Click Here To Read Jennifer's  Reviews