Book Review

So I spent my whole entire weekend reading; is it as pathetic as it sounds out loud?

* Please don't answer.*

Anywhoodles, I lounged up with Liz Tuccillo's awesome book "How to be Single" and it only has one premise. How are single women around the world and most importantly, are they happy?

I came across this book in a train station when I was leaving Paris in may 2009 but I never got around to reading it and because the Twilight series was on heavy rotation; what can I say? If I love something, I want to consume it over and over and over again until I get tired of it.

*Don't worry Edward, I shall never grow tired of thee.*

I must say I was very skeptical about the book at first but I was gladly surprised. It's very reminiscent of Sex and the City meets Bridget Jone's Diary meets Eat,Pray, Love.

The story is about 5 30-something ladies who live in New York and who happen to be single at the same time and all have their own hardships dealing with men and relationships (or lack thereof). The main character Julie decides to quit her day job of a publisher and travel the world trying to figure out how women around the world achieve being single and happy.

*WARNING! WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD.*

She travels to France, Italy, Brazil, Australia, Bali, China, India and Iceland; she manages to fall in love and try desperately to fall out of love while her friends all deal with their own dramas back in New York. Georgina's husband just left her for a younger woman, and she has to deal with the emotions that come with a divorce while trying to care for her two children. Serena decides to join an ashram, taking a vow of celibacy but that vow seems too hard to keep. Ruby is very emotional and sick of putting all of her efforts into relationships that never amount to anything and Alice is quite the serial dater and decides to settle down because it's time to; but is she making the right decision?

I personally enjoyed this book and the title pretty much says it all. It's not called "How to be single and then meet the love of your life"; it doesn't have the traditional happy ending that we often find in chick-lit. In the end, it's all about the deceptions, false-hopes and the too-good-to-be-true kinda love but the most obvious is, of course, that we cannot expect to be loved unconditionally unless we are willing to truly love ourselves.