Customer Reviews

Dating Game

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is by far my favorite of Danielle Steel's novels. The character development is exquisite. Totally believable. She takes her time telling the story in this unabridged edition, and if you are listening to this story for the first time, this is the version I would highly recommend. I love the way the main character thinks things through, logically and thoroughly. Even as a fictitious character, she serves as an inspiration to women. I still think she should have clocked the "other woman" over the head with the punch bowl at her daughter's wedding, but she's so likable I can forgive her diplomacy. If you are a fan of Ms. Steel, you will love this book.

Paris Armstrong is the perfect wife and mother of two grown children. She lives in a beautiful house in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her perfect world is shattered when her husband of twenty-four years, Peter, announces after a dinner party that he is leaving her for another woman. One who is barely older than their daughter. Paris is distraught to say the least and tries to pick up the pieces and move on with her life. Part of this process includes her moving to the West Coast and finding a job. There she meets Bixby Mason, party planner extraordinaire! She becomes friends with Bixby and through his encouragement decides to get back into the "dating game".

This book was an OK read. I felt sorry for Paris at first when Peter dumped her and thought he was a jerk. It was good to know that Danielle Steel could still write about people and pull the proper emotion out of me. I quickly became bored though when she moved to California and started dating. Her dates were funny but they all seemed the same. The storyline seemed to me to get stuck halfway through the book. It was like Danielle Steel got Paris to California and then didn't know what to do with her. The direction of the book appeared to be going nowhere fast.

I am getting a little tired of reading about women who are treated badly by their husbands and that is what the last few Steel novels have been. It also seems to me as if she's bringing in the same quirky characters but with different names, example: Bixby Mason. I loved this character, he definitely added entertainment to the story, but wasn't he in a previous novel but with a different name? Ms. Steel's characters all seem to be the same anymore.

I am beginning to wonder if Ms. Steel hasn't run out of ideas. After 50+ books maybe she is. I see she is due to have another book released this year. Hopefully it will be better. Although Dating Game was a somewhat enjoyable read I still prefer her earlier works. They are much more entertaining and worthy of the title "bestseller".

I must agree with the reader who just wanted to scream "Get a dog!" The first half of the book was good, and I sympathized with Paris.

Then she moves to a new city and a great job falls in her lap. After a few bad dates and failing to make any real friends, she decides that she needs a baby. Never mind that it is mentioned over and over again that she works such loooooong hours, often getting home after 10:00 PM. Never mind that in real life, nobody gets to adopt a healthy infant within two weeks. Never mind that all Paris needed to do was *get a life*!

All I got out of this book was the lesson that I really need to try reading something with more substance.

With numerous stage, film and television roles to his credit Sam Freed gives a bravura reading of Danielle Steel's 57th novel. What would it be like to return to the singles' scene after 24 years of marriage? Listeners will discover just how it might be with "Dating Game."

Being tossed aside for a younger model is a story probably as old as men and women. Nonetheless, it was a completely new and an excruciatingly painful scenario for Paris Armstrong. She had two grown children, a satisfying life, a lovely Connecticut home, and a contented husband - or so she thought until he bluntly asked for a divorce.

She ached, she wept; she was inconsolable. Nevertheless, she knew she must go on. As might be expected friends rallied round bringing with them any number of impossible suitors. None could hold a candle to Peter, the former husband whom she still loved.

Deciding that distance might assuage her heartbreak Paris moved West - all the way to San Francisco. There were men there, too; all of them wrong for her. And, of all things, her daughter would soon marry a man her age.

Yet, as in many Steel novels there are lessons to be learned in disappointment and joy to be found in the most unexpected places.

A veteran yarn spinner, Steel weaves another trip on the rocky roads of romance that her fans will relish.

- Gail Cooke

Paris Armstrong's husband of 24 yrs decided one day that he had enough of the marriage and wanted a divorce. Paris was devastated. She did not see it coming. After struggling over the loss, she decided to move to San Francisco to be near her children. After she settled into her new life, she started dating. She ended up going out with a string of losers one right after the other. Eventually she stopped looking and by coincidence she ran into someone who was suitable. A happy and romantic ending!

After a few novels that just weren't up to par, Danielle Steel seems to have found her inspiration again.

Dating Game is about Paris Armstrong whose husband comes home one day and tells her he wants a divorce, he's in love with another woman & would rather be with her than his wife of 24 years. Now Paris is forced to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and try & make a new life for herself. The first question is: does she want to? The second: how does she do that? Third: Will she ever want to be with another man again, be able to trust him?

I put myself in Paris's shoes and it was heart-wrenching, what this woman went through. We've probably all been there (being left), so it's kind of neat to read about someone & how they deal with their struggle. I enjoyed not only the story, but the characters. Danielle really did a good job with this book, she makes you care about the characters & what will happen to them, as she does with most of her books. The best aspect about this book though were all of the funny dates Paris goes on. It's too funny!

If you're looking for something newer of Steel's to read, try this book or Answered Prayers & Safe Harbour- they all are examples that she can still write moving love stories.

After all, I am the Danielle Steel expert. I've read pretty much everything she's done. And, I'm hardly shy when it comes to admitting she's got some pretty bad stuff out there.

"Dating Game" is not one of them. The sense of movement, action, and adventure is very prevalent here, as divorcee, Paris Armstrong, endures being dumped by her long-time husband, moving cross-country, forging a new life, enduring several typical flaky "California" type men as dates (very realistic), and through it all, keeping her sense of humor.

This has got to be the funniest Danielle Steel I have read in a long time. What else is new here? A gay subplot. Yes, you heard correctly. I can't remember a Danielle Steel novel ever featuring gay characters. All right, there was a little blurb, right at the end of "The Wedding" about lesbianism---but not the somewhat in-depth treatment gays and AIDs gets here in "Dating Game."

Danielle Steel hasn't had San Francisco as a setting for one of her novels in a while. Well, at least not since 1999's awful "Irresistible Forces." Danielle Steel actually lives in the town, so if there's anyone who knows San Francisco, and can write with authority on the town and it's wacky eligible bachelors, it's Danielle Steel.

"Dating Game" is quite a page-turner and quite a happy novel as you follow along with Paris and her San Francisco dating adventures. It's fun to try to guess which parts of this novel are autobiographical, as Danielle Steel has talked about her own return into the San Francisco dating world, and how she based this book on her own personal adventures.

It's incredible that after all these years Steel can still turn out fresh and invigorating ideas when she wants to. I place "Dating Game" with my other recent Danielle Steel favorites: "The Wedding" and "Lone Eagle." I also, somewhat enjoyed "Sunset In St. Tropez" and "Answered Prayers."

I look forward to reading Danielle Steel's "Johnny Angel" next, as I see this author has still has some talent in her yet!

I am a true romantic so I love almost all of Danielle Steel's books and this was no exception. It had wonderful characters, heartbreak, loss, humor love and compassion. It also showed how getting back into the dating game is really a game, and that love can come when you least expect it. As I said in my title, LOVED IT!!

This was Danielle Steel finest. It realistically describe the struggles that Paris feels after her world is turn upside down after her husbands leaves her for a younger woman. The feelings of her kids were express well too. This is a book that you will enjoy reading and laughing at the same time.

There was a lot about this book that I liked, but several things really irritated me:

1. Paris doing the dirty work for her ex-husband. In the beginning, when he dumps her, as he is leaving he asks if she will tell the kids and she nods. HELL NO! I would not tell the children, I would make him do it. He's the one who decided to leave.

2. Jim and Phyllis - OK, really? First of all, it mentioned when they met that Paris wasn't attracted to him. I guess the chemistry built after that. But then, when she meets Malcolm the writer, she tells Bix there is no chemistry and there's a long section in there about how chemistry is there or it isn't. This was incongruous within the book since she apparently was able to let the chemistry build with Jim when she didn't feel it at first.

Second, I cannot believe she hung in there for so long with this man constantly bringing up the dead wife. I dated a guy who constantly brought up his ex-wife and how horrible she was. That relationship lasted all of three weeks for me before I told him that he needed to get over it and to let me know when he did. I sure as hell wouldn't have wasted as much time as Paris did with someone who clearly wasn't over his dead wife.

3. It's mentioned by Bix when she takes the job that she won't have time for anything ever and yet somehow, she has time for weekends away with the first guy she goes to LA with and then to Napa with Jim. She also has a lot of time to date these guys apparently. Guess the job wasn't all encompassing as previously stated.

There were just a lot of inconsistencies within the story and a lot of things that no sane person would have allowed to go on forever.