USA Today

Three of hearts: Books play the romance card

By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

… What Was I Thinking? 

58 Bad Boyfriend Stories
Edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman; St. Martin’s Press, 200 pp., $19.95

This is a treat for any woman spending the big V alone. Really. This collection of real-life “love” stories should be filed under the category of horror/humor — and kept out the hands of impressionable girls who might consider the veil, because Thinking could be subtitled The Joy of Celibacy. Fifty-eight brave women — including Carrie Fisher and Nicole Hollander — reveal the precise moment in which they realized they did not/should not/would not/could never love the man they were with. Sometimes it was the date who pronounced “carafe” as “creche,” insisting he was correct. And sometimes it was looking at a husband of 14 years and realizing he’d never decouple from the TV. The scary ones are the stories about all the things women did for love. And got zip in return.