Love, Marriage, Divorce, and Commitment Aversion for Generation Text!
First of all, do not be alarmed that "Save As Draft" or SaD as it is already being short-hand referred to, is a cumbersome read being a 317 pages long novel. Please know and be relieved by the fact that it is a series of emails, complete with amusing email headers, enriched by a smattering of SMS text messages and tweets on twitter. So really, it would be a much shorter novel than the 317 pages without the email headers. Really, you can read it in a day at the beach or an afternoon of beauty sharing it with your girlfriends!
"Save As Draft" is a fun, frothy confection to read over the weekend when you are starting your Friday afternoon or Saturday morning mani/pedi with your BFF girlfriends or Day Tripper road trips to the Beach this summer, the perfect accompaniment to your SPF 35 sunscreen. Following in the rich tradition of English novels' history with the earliest ones being written in the form of letters, aka epistolary novels, (
Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded (Oxford World's Classics)), SaD is the 21st century expression of such being a series of emails. Cavanaugh Lee manages to artfully convey our heroine, her dates, suitors, and boyfriends in conjunction with parental units, leading law firm bosses, and her closest circle of girlfriends all through the email exchange medium.
Our heroine is Izabell Chin (aka Izzy and Iz), a young attorney in a large law firm in Atlanta, aka ATL. The story opens with her studying for the CA Bar Exam while simultaneously starting out at Eharmony. Certainly the opening exchanges of Eharmony emails and forced guided correspondence before exchanging photos is straight out of the current dating scene where you can bet that single women are sharing and showing single men's emails to all their gal pals for chiming and voting on who is deemed a worthy. It's hysterically funny it is SO true to life in that slightly embarrassing manner.
Since certain aspects of the plot are already cited in the Publishers Weekly summary, I won't be ruining things for you nor overly revealing the plot to relate that Izzy meet one of her Eharmony suitors, Martin, has a PERFECT First Date, only to have just crossed the line from Platonic Friendship to Hot and Heavy Romance with her attorney co-worker friend of 2 years, Peter. And now the plot thickens!
1 Word of Caution: I have to mention this because singles do read such novels and take their dating cues from books and movies. As a well-recognized internet dating coach, I must warn single women NOT to give out their home address for him to pick her up to a complete stranger on the internet as Izzy does for her first date with Martin on page 28, but rather to arrange to meet safely in public in an area near her that she is comfortably familiar with to practice online dating safety habits.
The amusing story ensues of Peter's whirlwind romance of Izzy unto their engagement only to coincide with his starting out on a highly demanding law case which will last for MONTHS just at the two are striving to plan their CA-based wedding. Izzy, while herself an attorney who you might think would be familiar with major law firm demands for billable hours, late nighters, and whole weekenders, finds herself neglected by Peter, only to have Martin resurface and woo her "just a friend" in manners which appeal to her neglected heart. Enriching the plot with foils are Izzy's major girlfriends, Annette, Elizabeth, and Brooke, as well as Izzy's and Peters parents, and Peter's boss, Rose, with divorces, break ups, fix ups, online dating emails, mistresses, and career demands.
The embarrassing moments on Facebook and Twitter, exchanging text messages with someone right next to you when you are in the company of others, makes this a novel for the 21st century with an engaging tongue-in-cheek sense of humor for us all. A light page turning read, I devoured SaD in an afternoon and laughed aloud throughout. I wouldn't be surprised to see this made into a movie (think "You've Got Mail 3.0"
You've Got Mail (Deluxe Edition)) or a television series (a la Sex And The City in the 21st century!
Sex and the City: The Complete Series (Collector's Giftset))to follow the trials and love tribulations of Generation Text. When you crave Chick Lit confection, look no further! You've found it in "Save as Draft!" Enjoy!
Happy Dating and Relationships,
April Braswell
Dating and Relationship Expert
as seen in Dating for Dummies, 3d Edition (
Dating For Dummies (For Dummies (Psychology & Self Help)))
