Love or Something Like It

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Love or Something Like It (eBook) Pub. Date: 4/14/2009 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
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Love or Something Like It Pub. Date: 4/14/2009 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

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Overview

A clear-eyed, emotionally honest debut about a thirtysomething woman forced to redefine her entire world after her young marriage falters, Love or Something Like It proves we can grow up at any age.

When Lacey Brennan meets Toby, a sweet and talented comedian, she impulsively moves across the country to be with him in Los Angeles. Lacey is unsure of what she is looking for out west–love? a new career? an escape from her fractured family?–but is reassured when Toby proposes on her thirtieth birthday. “I was thirty and I finally knew what I was doing,” she says.

In California, which Lacey calls “the edge of the earth,” she has the giddy, anticipatory feeling that anything can happen–opportunity looms large, and her life may yet turn out the way she wants it to. But soon in her marriage with Toby, from their awkward honeymoon in Paris to their desperate attempts to build careers, Lacey knows that something is wrong. Toby, unemployed, becomes a permanent fixture on the couch, and things are no better at Lacey’s TV job, where a pit bull stalks her, colleagues tyrannize her, and her boss hits on her. Meanwhile, her twin brother has dropped off the face of the earth, and Lacey begins to wonder whether she and Toby should start a family if she can’t even figure out her own. It is only after Lacey has given up on both L.A. and love that she gets an unexpected shot at happiness.

Rich with wry humor and wisdom, Deirdre Shaw’s novel deftly portrays a relatable, unforgettable character in Lacey Brennan, who, after a five-year quest for love and belonging, finds she must live in the moment inorder to understand her past and face her future.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In Shaw's bright and promising first novel, love lures Lacey Brennan from New York to Hollywood, where she and Toby, a TV writer, shack up in a Laurel Canyon cottage. When he proposes, 30-year-old Lacey sees the happily-ever-after she's sought since her parents' divorce, but she's vexed at every turn: the absence of her brother casts a pall over the wedding; the honeymoon is marred by arguments and stomach ailments. Professional life is no rosier: after her editor spikes her tax-evasion exposé, Lacey quits her newspaper job and takes an assistant gig at a lame sitcom. Toby loses his job and wonders aloud, "Maybe I was too young to get married." First comes marriage counseling, then divorce, after which Lacey coasts into an affair with her egomaniac boss, takes a stab at screenplay writing and tries to unite her family. Only after deciding to move back to Manhattan and adopting a "spring break" attitude toward L.A. does she feel something like satisfaction. Shaw's first novel unfolds easily, with well-crafted prose and vivid detail, and even if some of the interpersonal drama can feel TV-thin, this is a great young-in-L.A. novel. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Lacey, a newspaper reporter in her late twenties, meets stand-up comic/TV writer Toby and moves from New York to Los Angeles to be with him. Things go downhill quickly after the two get married and Toby loses his job. Toby, who can't find work, becomes a perpetual couch potato and starts to question their marriage. Soon, Lacey is divorced and left to wonder what she is doing in L.A. She decides to stay and, in the process, has some success as a screenwriter and dates anyone and everyone in an attempt to forget Toby. She also examines how her relationships with her parents and brother may have contributed to the hasty demise of her marriage. It's not until Lacey decides to move back to New York that she meets someone in Los Angeles who gives her a chance at a more mature love than she had with Toby. This debut novel reads at times like connected short stories. The strong main character and vivid depictions of Hollywood life combine to create a worthwhile reading experience. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ12/08.]
—Karen Core

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Kirkus Reviews

In former TV writer Shaw's debut, a series of connected stories with Los Angeles as a supporting character, a transplanted New Yorker finds herself adrift in La-La Land after her marriage goes south. When reporter Lacey Brennan, "on the cusp of her thirties," meets Toby in a Manhattan comedy club, she feels like her grown-up life has begun at last. He's sweet and funny, and after a whirlwind bicoastal courtship she joins him in California, where he is a staff writer for a late-night TV show. Insecure Lacey overlooks many signals that they might not be well suited for each other, and after the wedding things unravel quickly. Toby loses his job and spends his days in front of the television in a pot-fueled haze while she supports them working as an assistant on a TV show. Eager to salvage their relationship and avoid a divorce like the one that tore apart her own family, Lacey turns to couples therapy, but Toby leaves her anyway. Depressed and lonely in a city that doesn't feel like home, she throws herself into an ill-advised affair and numerous casual hook-ups. Her soul-searching (and some therapy) leads her back to a traumatic childhood in which her mother was forced to choose her new husband over Lacey and her twin brother Sam. Realizing that lingering unresolved issues are holding her back, Lacey stages an intervention with her parents and Sam, a plan complicated by the fact that Sam has been missing for years. Meanwhile, Lacey's improved confidence attracts a new suitor who, wouldn't you know it, appears right after she decides to move back to New York for good. Rises above the downbeat first half to offer a believable, honest and observant portrait of a woman who gets what she wantsonly after giving up what she thought she needed. Agent: Kate Lee/ICM

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781400067701
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 4/14/2009
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.40 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Deirdre Shaw’s nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Observer, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her fiction was included in the New Short Fiction Series Emerging Voices Group Show in Los Angeles in 2005, and she was awarded a 2004 Hackney Literary Award for National Short Story. Shaw lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she has also written for television.

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drbcabarete

Posted August 22, 2009

Good Title

Nice book, pleasant reading. A very light romantic encounter though some would see it as more so. She writes simply which is good. Her characters are there and some are rather boring but they make it through the book. I found that I was expecting more from the title and in the hands of a more experienced writer probably would have found it. It is a book written for televison by someone writing for television. I would look to this author to improve with age.
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Frisbeesage

Posted April 29, 2009

This is a beautifully written debut novel and I am anxious to see what Deirdre Shaw writes next!

Love, or Something Like It is a modern day, coming of age story. The story starts when Lacey meets Toby, falls head over heels in love, and impulsively follows him from New York to LA. She has this idea that her life is some kind of fairy tale and everything will magically turn out perfect. When, instead, everything falls apart she has to figure out what it is she really wants from life and how to make it happen.

In the beginning of the book I didn't really like Lacey, she was shallow and immature,but the writing was fluid and easy to read so I kept reading. But as the story progresses Lacey begins to develop, her experiences affect her character, and she turned into a character I could really root for.By the end I felt like I had been on this incredible journey with her, like we grew up together. I loved that Lacey had to learn that happiness doesn't just happen, its something you create for yourself. This is a beautifully written debut novel and I am anxious to see what Deirdre Shaw writes next!
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Posted March 19, 2009

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Posted April 28, 2009

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Love or Something Like It

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Good Title

This is a beautifully written debut novel and I am anxious to see what Deirdre Shaw writes next!