Heartbreak Handbook [Paperback]

Valerie Frankel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1994

With the help of two or three (hundred) of their heartbroken friends, as well as numerous bonafide heartbreak therapists, authors Valerie Frankel and Ellen Tien provide traveller's advisories, hands-on strategies, and real-life tales from the heartbreak trail, including:
Five warnings signs of danger ahead (is it over, or what?); The worst 24 hours of your life--and how to get through every minute of them, plus quizzes, strategies, revenge tactics, sex surveys, and other good stuff to get you through the pain. There is life after a breakup and with THE HEARTBREAK HANDBOOK, you'll have (a happier) one sooner than you think!

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

With the help of two or three (hundred) of their heartbroken friends, as well as numerous bonafide heartbreak therapists, authors Valerie Frankel and Ellen Tien provide traveller's advisories, hands-on strategies, and real-life tales from the heartbreak trail, including:
Five warnings signs of danger ahead (is it over, or what?); The worst 24 hours of your life--and how to get through every minute of them, plus quizzes, strategies, revenge tactics, sex surveys, and other good stuff to get you through the pain. There is life after a breakup and with THE HEARTBREAK HANDBOOK, you'll have (a happier) one sooner than you think!

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (January 3, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449907570
• ISBN-13: 978-0449907573
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,407,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Valerie Frankel has written twenty-five books, and hopes to write many more. For more info about her books, magazine articles, cats, kids, life in Brooklyn, reviews of other people's books, go to www.valeriefrankel.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you only buy one break-up book, this is a MUST have!!, March 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Heartbreak Handbook (Paperback)

This book is absolutely fantastic at making you feel like you're not the only one out there who feels close to death due to a break-up. No matter how down you are and you think, "nothing can make me smile," I'm not kidding - you will bust out laughing at this book. I've never been so uplifted right out of the dumps before, that I sometimes read it just for laughs and to get me out of other types of blues. The book has a real talking-directly-to-you-like-it's-your-best-friend-when-they're-not-around type of feel. It outlines all the thoughts we've all had about being dumped or doing the dumping in a humorous way that points out how you aren't the only person in the world who's ever suffered so horribly. I especially like the stories of others who have suffered, some are so hilarious that you'll think your own break-up was practically a party. Unlike other books that deal with the psychological trauma and the cycles of relationships blah blah blah this one actually does the job of lifting you up and helping you move ON already. There are several funny quizzes that will leave you in stitches as well as (what we've all been waiting for) how the GUY handles the break-up and what he's going through. But don't worry guys, even with this section, this book is for you too, most of the writing just plain and simple covers all people and all of that yucky, no-one-will-love-me-again pain. Last but not least, it humorously walks you through each day after the break-up and all the neurotic stages you'll be going through, as if you're given a humorous invitation on the never-to-love-again roller coaster ride. I can't recommend it highly enough.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for the heartbroken woman., December 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Heartbreak Handbook (Paperback)

Do not pass this book by if you are a heartbroken woman or has a friend who is. This book is painfully funny from begining to end and you get some really great advice along the way. The author's have included several do and don't list's that range from what to do with his stuff, music, food, and (gulp) dating again.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hysterical and heartening!, October 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Heartbreak Handbook (Paperback)

After at least two breakups with the same guy, this book kept me sane and occupied when the temptation to brood came calling. Wacky in some ways -- in that Glamour-Mademoiselle-Cosmo quasi-psychobabbly kind of manner -- yet oddly practical in others, "The Heartbreak Handbook" makes a wonderful case for moving on.

When it's 3 a.m. and it's too late to call up my best girlfriend and weep into the phone over the latest weasel in my life, I'd rather have Frankel and Tien's warm humor and sincere empathy than the clinical tone -- if not outright back-patting chirpiness -- of a lot of self-help authors dealing with the same topic.

And no, I'm neither with nor hung up on the aforementioned weasel any longer. So the book must've done some good.