(29) Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn

I am in the middle of packing & moving, so my reading time was pushed to the few minutes I could keep my eyes open after crawling into bed. Any other time, I would have whipped through this book in a couple of days. I enjoyed it that much.

When I read the synopsis for this book, I was thinking, I could have written the book myself. A woman gets her heart broken by the man she loves & she gets a dog to deal with the loss. Yup. Been there, done that. And just for the record, getting a dog is the only way to deal with a traumatic break up.

It took only one chapter to realize that Sarah Dunn is far more talented than I could ever hope to be. Secrets to Happiness is a smart & funny look at life after a break-up.

Holly Frick is one year post divorce. She is still having a hard time with things & still believes that her ex is the love of her life. Her best friend, Amanda, has just told her that she is cheating on her husband. So what is a girl to do? She takes a younger lover & adopts a dog that has cancer. But is she over the ex?

Sarah Dunn has written an insightful book. Holly is so busy feeling sorry for herself and playing the victim, it takes her ex-ex boyfriend, Spencer, to hold the mirror up to Holly & help her realize that she is not as much the victim as she wants to believe she is.

While reading this book, I saw a few reviews in magazines and it got great reviews. But both reviews stated that Secrets to Happiness was not as good as Dunn's first book, Big Love. Given how much I enjoyed this book, I better dig Big Love out of my "To Be Read" pile to find out for myself.