Customer Reviews

Happiness Sold Separately

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

After two years of failed fertility treatments, Elinor and Ted Mackey have grown apart, becoming more like roommates than spouses. Elinor, a corporate attorney, likes to hide in the laundry room, where the cycling machines soothe frayed nerves. Ted, a podiatrist, spends his spare time working out at the health club--and seeing his fitness trainer on the side.

Elinor is at a loss when she overhears Ted talking on the phone with someone named Gina. When the truth comes out, everyone involved has to figure out the next step. Still in some form of love with his wife, Ted promises to break up with Gina. Sometimes life intrusions make promises hard to keep.

With Elinor's expectations of married life shattered, everyone involved will be forced to examine what is right and wrong, not just in life, but for them as individuals. Ted and Gina are given significant voice during this painful process. As a result, readers will be asked to look up on Gina with empathy, perhaps even a little understanding, in spite of her role as "the other woman."

Each perspective is lovingly detailed, exposing the strengths and weaknesses of each character. All three of the main players are compelling. Rather than detracting from the flow and pacing of the story, the inclusion of all three characters is smoothly done.

Ultimately, this is Elinor's story. As she moves through the roles of successful professional, to frustrated fertility patient, and finally to a new place in her life, Elinor will learn that happiness is never guaranteed, but "sold separately."

This is a great rainy-day novel. Curl up in a chair in order to appreciate the wide range of emotions present in this extraordinarily normal story. It's a great peek into a situation little understood by those who have not endured it.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
7/19/2006

I loved Good Grief and grabbed this as soon as I saw it on the book shelf. At first I savored it because Winston's writing is EXCELLENT and I did laugh out loud a few times (as I did in Good Grief) but I found, like another reader, that I just didn't care about these characters.

The kid, in particular, bugged me. He's sneaky and manipulative and the adults tell him entirely too much stuff, especially at the end. The conversations with this kid go on entirely too long. He's never disciplined and it just drove me crazy after a while and became a huge distraction for me.

The adults did not fare much better as far as I am concerned. I didn't really like any of them by the end. I started the book with high hopes but about 3/4 of the way through I realized I really didn't care what happened to any of them. The ending was a good one which is tough to pull off in a book like this when so much needs to be resolved but the characters just didn't do it for me.

I picked this book up among several others to go through "lighter reading" for the next few weeks. I thought this one was a comedy but it's not. It is actually a well-written look into infidelity and infertility. The only reason why I gave it a three star is because it's not my favorite book ~~ it was entertaining. It was well-written. It was funny in spots, but it's just didn't leave me sighing at the end and wish for more. It is just an entertaining novel.

There are several characters in here ~~ the main character, Elinor, who suffered two years of infertility treatments and is depressed, only to find out her husband is having an affair with his training instructor at the local gym, Gina. Gina has a son, Toby, who is awfully nosey. Their lives all intersect till the climatic ending. The characters all reflect every day normal people caught up in the motion of their lives and actions. And frankly, none of them are that likeable. Elinor was too self-absorbed. Ted is too wimpy to make up his mind. Toby is annoying. Gina is too perfect. But that's what makes the novel move.

It is a good indepth look though in marriage, lack of communication when things start going wrong and why things fall apart and people move into affairs. It's also a good lesson when Elinor finally realizes that happiness is not guaranteed ~~ too bad that it has taken her till her 40s to learn that and only at the end.

If you're looking for something lighter to read ~~ this one would be a good start. It's perfect like one reviewer said, for a rainy afternoon cozy on the chair.

8-17-07

The plot isn't that new. A couple, in crisis, and one of them (in this case, the husband) has an affair. But author Lolly Winston has the ability to make the situation much more complex than it first appears. All of the individuals (husband, wife, girlfriend) are deeply fleshed out and I found myself drawn to each of them, understanding how and why marital stresses, particularly infertility, added to the entire situation. Deep, rich, rewarding to read, leaving the reader with deeper insight about human behavior and motivations. A worthy effort by a talented writer.

Wow!! Lolly Winston proves that her wonderful debut GOOD GRIEF was no fluke with the excellent HAPPINESS SOLD SEPARATELY.

It's been ages since I've read a book that I literally could not put down, having read all but the first 30 pages of this one in one sitting. I found Elinor, Ted and Gina to be wonderfully written characters. They are likable, frustrating, annoying, selfish, needy and sad. Very real characters with very real human emotions. I was definitely in Elinor's corner throughout the story. While her withdrawing from Ted was not a good thing, I understood what she was going through and felt she deserved better. Ted is the character I had the most problem with. Clearly he is a man who seems to want his cake and eat it too. He is unbelievably selfish and I was hoping Gina would eventually see this.

I have one small complaint about the book and that is the character of Toby. He is a supremely annoying child and I never felt a great deal of sympathy for him because of it. I also was never quite sure what led him to believe Ted was such a great guy. Was it because Ted talked politely to him one night at a resturant? I needed a little more than that to understand the connection.

Wintson does a great job of telling this story, and even throws a few curves just to shake things up. As for the reviewer who was unhappy with the "no resolution" ending, I'm sorry to say that that is often what life is like, sometimes there is no resolution and sometimes the resolution is not one we would like. Lolly Winston understands that and has written an excellent book to prove it. Enjoy!

I read the first three pages of the book, and I just could not put it down in the bookstore. Bought it, enjoyed the first three chapters, and then felt disappointed. To start with, the none of the characters are likable. Elinor is annoying - self centered - and the writer thought the readers should sympathize with her infertility ... but hello ... it takes two to tango in a marriage, and two to start a family. So ignoring your husband for two years during the IVF process is no excuse. Ted is annoying too. So you love your wife. You were neglected by her. Talk to her! Instead he sleeps with Gina.

Gina - well, she is a failure. She fails as a mother, she fails as a human being. The way she pampers Toby, and let him get away with all the rudeness and nasty things he has done - it was incomprehensible. So what if she is a single mom. Get real.

Toby - send me back to Maine already.

Very disappointed with the book. Started great, but then down hill after the third chapter.

This book really irked me; the cover promised an "alarmingly fresh" resolution but in fact it was a tired old ending and one that certainly cheated the only at-all-likeable character, Elinor. Somehow Elinor perceived Gina as needing (and deserving) Ted "more" because she was a single mom; but what was Elinor doing at the end but planning to become a single mother herself, who presumably would have her own Toby in a few years and be in the same situation? And of course, he "really" loves the younger, prettier (and, they point out, less educated, and seemingly pretty narrow) woman he doesn't know as well, and is approved for valuing it over the clearly much deeper and reality-based relationship he had with Elinor -- he acknowledges a number of times that she knows him very well; when he thinks of Gina he thinks of good meals and back rubs. Uh huh. That's what that really great guy Ted wants most. He was painted as so angelic (and dull) it really got on my nerves; and Gina WAS a poor mother, there were no repercussions for Toby's vicious screaming at the guy on the roof, or for constantly manipulating other people and disobeying her; his "need" for and infatuation with Ted (based on what? simple male attention?) was again more important and deserving to be met than Elinor's long relationship with Ted. Gina herself comes across as boring; her little speech about seeing the armor at the Metropolitan was totally out of the character otherwise painted, who wouldn't have the slightest idea or interest about anything in the Met. One feels it was thrown in to make her seem a little more interesting that she clearly was.

The book certainly portrays the ordeal of infertility realistically; but it seems to conclude that this ordeal justifiably killed their marriage. But life is full of terrible ordeals, and why would Gina and Ted be any more likely to survive anything comparable --say the kid getting cancer or something -- than Elinor and Ted were. Is Ted and Gina's the "real" love here? Or just a relationship in the beginning stages so thus seemingly full of happiness; and they are doomed to the same ending if their luck gives out.

I felt the book was subtly anti-professional/older women, and that really depressed me too.

I was extremely disappointed with this book. I bought it because I loved Good Grief and was so excited to see another one out by Lolly Winston. So, I cuddled up and expected a fun read. I found the characters had the possibility of being likable if less idiotic choices had been made. In Good Grief there was sadness and happiness with efforts being made to make good choices and resolve to try and keep commitments. In this book I found that commitment seemed like a 4 letter word and doing the right thing was hard to stomach. From a values standpoint I was horrified. I would not recommend this and to be honest have thrown my copy away because I wouldn't want anyone else wasting their time.

I loved Lolly Winston's first book, "Good Grief", so I was excited to see this one come out. But for some reason, the magic was lost. There were some very interesting characters, but I truly didn't find any of them likeable. I realize everyone doesn't have to be cookie-cutter personalities, but I do need to have some emotional connection to a character; something that makes me want to read more about them. Instead, I pitied every one of them. It certainly isn't a terrible book (actually there is a lot of wit and humor, much like her first one), but it just didn't speak to me.

Never has the title of a book more aptly described the content within. This tome is nothing more than the recounting of incidents in the life of a group of marginally intelligent and emotionally challenged individuals who, when faced with choices, inevitably choose the one designed to create the most disasterous results. Over and over and over again. If you are looking for happiness in the recounting of a good tale look elswhere on the bookshelf.