Customer Reviews

Five Men Who Broke My Heart

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I enjoyed this book so much I could not put it down. It made me realize I am not alone in this crazy world of relationships. It has inspired me to look at my own past realtionships and move on and to look around at the people in my life now and appreciate them. I would highly recommend this book to evryone!!!

Have you ever thought about the ones that got away? Ever found yourself thinking "what if" about past relationships?

Journalist Susan Shapiro has. In fact, she wrote a book about it.

In the midst of a midlife crisis on the brink of her 40th birthday, she found herself a frustrated novelist and wannabe mother with a completed manuscript that publishers kept rejecting, married to a workaholic comedy writer who travelled a lot and is unable to father the child she thought she wanted.

And the "spark" had gone out of their marriage.

Feeling insecure, she perked up when she heard from an ex-boyfriend named Brad. "I hadn't seen Brad in ten years," she divulges in anticipation of their reunion. "In ten minutes he was coming back to see me. Not to say `I'm sorry,' `I can't forget you,' or better yet, `No woman has ever been able to replace you.'" The real reason Brad, now a professor at Harvard, had sought her out was because he wanted her to interview him about his upcoming book for one of the publications she wrote for.

But still, she decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ask Brad some questions about where their relationship had gone wrong.

She fell, reluctantly, for Brad when she was 16 and attending college, because he reminded her of the "fierce rivalry" she had experienced while growing up with three brothers. Although the relationship had ended with college, the butterflies that appeared in her stomach prior to their recent reunion told her that she'd never really gotten over him.

With her biological clock ticking menacingly, she thought, "If I'd married Brad, I'd have children by now, but we'd surely be divorced. If I was single, I could have his baby without marriage." But then "$20,000 worth of therapy kicked in.... [She] still hated him."

She spends the remainder of the book reanalyzing this and other past relationships.

Meeting with Tom, another old flame from college, made her reflective of "How strong-minded, brave, and sure of everything" she was in her 20s. "I was jealous of my old self, she says."

Also among the ex files are George, now also a college professor, and Richard, a writer who was less than pleased by a vicious comment she had made about him in a magazine article she had written after their breakup.

Her fifth ex, David, is now a dentist in Toronto. When she started her search for him, she found eight phone listings for dentists by that name. "There was one problem," though, she writes. "I forgot how polite Canadians were. For three days, it rained David Greens. All eight returned my call, none was him [sic]. They sounded nice. I felt bad, like I was disappointing them. Yet it was almost fun, as if rejecting eight David Greens could atone for the horrendous way my David Green had left me."

When she finally tracked him down through a mutual friend, she learned he felt the same way. His response to her e-mail request for a meeting, in part, was "I would rather take out my appendix with a bottle of Jack and a dull spoon."

Her journey into the past sometimes led to self-revelation, as in, "The man who I feared didn't think I was smart enough was my father. That might be why I had the idea to see my exes now." "...I needed absolution from all my father figures." She also briefly explores her relationship with her mother, whose response is "No, you're acting like you're 15 again."

Strangely enough, it is her husband Aaron, whose credits include Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld, who evokes the most sympathy. Despite the fact that she criticizes him for doing things too slowly, for instance, his rebuttal is "There's a Zen saying I like, `When late, walk slower.'"

If you can overlook the frequent references to drug use that sometimes make it seem Shapiro wants to be the poster child for marijuana legalization, her story is interesting enough. Take this one to the beach this summer and let someone else muse about the past for you.

Joan Rivers was right: Susan Shapiro IS hysterical. And she's an absolutely wonderful writer. In FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART, Shapiro pulls off the rare feat of entertaining the reader and imparting deep information at the same time. Of course this book has juicy details, just as the title promises. But it satisfies on a deeper level as well. The writer knows so much about relationships between men and women, and she's willing to share what she knows. She doesn't just tell the stories of her failed relationships with men; she describes her gradual transformation from girl to woman. It's not often that a writer is so obviously truthful in a memoir...Shapiro tells us everything we want to know about relationships, even when the truth doesn't reflect well on her. After reading FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART, I want to read everything Susan Shapiro has written. Hers is a voice that's smart and funny--it's a voice that I trust.

I loved the book. It was funny but real and I think everyone can relate to some part of the book.

I just finished "Five Men Who Broke My Heart." Great voice, smart dialogue, appealing narrator..."Five Men Who Broke My Heart" is the type of book with a voice that leaves the reader wanting to meet the author. I bet she'd be a great and loyal friend and someone who would offer straightforward and sound advice every time. And she's funny, to boot.

What a pleasure to read Sue Shapiro's gutsy and witty meanderings into the past while living the life of a third-wave feminist, married, successful but yearning to be fulfilled as women. I read in a Journal of International Women's Studies article that a book becomes a bestseller when it meets some sort of widespread cultural need. I believe that this book by Sue, if not best seller, would satisfy the emotional needs of all people in touch with their feminine-side. Sue sketches numerous real-life scenarios that young women experience when advancing from college to professional life. She has an entertaining writing style and weaves sexual experiences into the storyline. Sue succeeds to make psychotherapy sounds normal, like other medical necessities, such as visits to dentists and gynaecologists.

Susan Shapiro runs into Brad , an ex, when he calls her and asks her to review his book, and to put him in contact with people who can help his book. This meeting has her scrambling to showcase her attractiveness, smother her jealousy (she was the writer, she didn't invade his doctor turf, how dare he invade hers), and sets her down a path to reconnect with the four other men who broke her heart. Brad, Heartbreak #2, was a centric part of her life from ages 16 to 31, with his most memorable line being, "If I was capable of loving anyone, it would be you. But I'm not, so I don't." After Brad, there is Tom, the one who comforted her after Heartbreak #1, David, slept with her roommate in college. Richard and George, numbers 4 & 5 respectively, were pretty nondescript and didn't really stand out as a great love . The end result lets her in on the secret that she left just as big an impact on them, and showing her guilt in the demise of the relationships. More than that, it shows the real and solid love she has with her husband of five years, Aaron.

Boy, I've been on a bit of a memoir kick lately. After reading this one, I look forward to finding Shapiro's other memoirs and novels. With a sharp wit, an intellect that is still her favorite thing to be complimented on, and more than a touch of self-deprecation, this book is enjoyable from start to finish. It doesn't drag on too long, nor does it involve a tone of self-pity. Some of the pithy one-liners alone make this book worth reading!

As a guy, I was slightly wary of anything that might be deemed Chick-lit, but a friend had praised it highly and wanted to know what I thought. I also had read Only as Good as Your Word: Writing Lessons from My Favorite Literary Gurus and found it hilarious, so if I was going to try out this genre it would be something from this author.
Anyway, I had only planned to read a few pages to see what it was about but found it compelling, even hard to put down. Although it's premise is often cited as brilliant --and it is -- it's Shapiro's witty prose style and deft descriptions of these mad-cap encounters that reeled me in. A bonus was the insight into a successful, self-assured woman's psyche in very stressful situations. Aspiring memoirists should also buy this book as a learning tool.

I picked up this book and could not put it down (I ended up reading it in one sitting)! The writing is funny and poignant at the same time. I found myself laughing out loud at the author's witty prose as she recounts her love affairs and insecurities with brutal honesty. Read it and enjoy! I hope it gets made into a movie; it'll be great! I can see Natalie Portman playing the author.

...Shapiro, self-obsessed and boring. Some small gems but you had to dig way to hard to find them. There has to be more to her life than her mirror? Would have made a great Cosmo article but falls short as a book!