If you've read The Safety of Objects, this is a must read. If you haven't, this is still a highly recommended book. It's equally strange and familiar characters are beautifully drawn, and the situations, no matter how odd, feel as intense as a disaster and a family Thanksgiving dinner all rolled into one. ( )

Brilliant writing, I don't think I've ever read a book where I wanted to also the main characters so much! ( )

I really want to read an A.M. Homes novel but I can't seem to stick with it. ( )

Homes writes despair REALLY well. My dearest Meghan gave this to me almost two years ago, and I couldn't read it for this very reason. Coming back to it now, I can handle it a whole lot better. It's about a relationship gone rotten and how we always think we have it the worst when that's generally not really the case. This book is darkly funny in even the worst moments and a quick read, too--it's mostly dialogue. I loved how, for a 358 page book, the action of the story evolved in maybe a week-and-a-half tops and the events were totally human and utterly surreal at the same time. Excuse me while I recoup.... ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13270664

A surprisingly good book. If someone had told me of some of the incidents in the book before I read it, I might have passed on it. That's because the incidents are so outrageous that I can imagine a bad comedy full of them and I'm not interested in that. Yet it works, in this case.

It all begins when a disillusioned couple, Paul and Elaine, set their house on fire on the spur of the moment, and find that they are exhilarated. Only a part of it burns, though, and they are left to clean up the mess and tell stories to insurance agents. In a way their transgressions bond them together. Not that they don't still fight and call each other every kind of name, and they can hardly be said to be in the fog of love again.

In good comedy is always truth, and always drama as well. Perhaps that's what makes this work so well. And no, we do not watch as the couple finds comfort and stability and a good life. As other reviewers have said, the story pierces right through the American Dream, revealing what so many of us are really about. ( )