Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: Little, Brown / Time Warner
Release Date: July 2, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-73815-8
Awards:
Format Reviewed: Hardcover
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Genre: Fiction / Chick Lit / Women’s Fiction
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Shannon I. Bigham
Reviewer Notes: Sexual content
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The Big Love
By Sarah Dunn

     Author Sarah Dunn’s debut novel, The Big Love, is entertaining and thought provoking. Alison is a 32-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. She writes a column for a newspaper and she lives with her boyfriend of four years, Tom. Born-again Christian parents raised Alison and she has “lapsed” from her religion, to a certain extent, by virtue of her cohabitation and having sex with her boyfriend. Alison has mixed feelings about her activities and how God will view them, but she loves her boyfriend and desperately hopes that their living together will turn into an engagement and then marriage.

     Alison’s head appears to be in the clouds. One day, she and her boyfriend are hosting a dinner party and she has run out of mustard. She sends him off to the store and not only does he not return with the mustard, he does not return at all. Instead, he calls her from a payphone and informs her that he is in love with his college sweetheart and that he is not returning home. Alison is baffled and crushed by the news – not to mention that she receives it in the middle of the dinner party. All these events take place in the first chapter of the book. The remainder of the book is about Alison dealing with the breakup and sorting through her own feelings and her status of a single woman at thirty-two years old. Due to her Christian background, it has been instilled in her that it is critical to find a suitable man to marry and have children. Therefore, Alison’s biological clock ticks much louder than that of the average, single thirty-something woman. Will Alison ever find The Big Love to make her life complete?

     The Big Love was entertaining, heartfelt and very funny at times. The author has a great sense of humor and the writing was clear, concise and I turned the pages effortlessly and was eager to continue reading to find out what happened to Alison. The Big Love is highly recommended to fans of contemporary fiction, women’s fiction and chick lit.