Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks

Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks
Published by St. Martin's Press on November 19, 2019
Pages: 352
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"Radical, extraordinary, and profoundly human." - Taylor Jenkins Reid

1. Daniel Mayrock loves his wife Jill…more than anything. 2. Dan quit his job and opened a bookshop.3. Jill is ready to have a baby. 4. Dan is scared; the bookshop isn’t doing well. Financial crisis is imminent. 5. Dan hasn’t told Jill about their financial trouble. He’s ashamed. 6. Then Jill gets pregnant.

This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances—he wants to become someone.

1. Dan wants to do something special. 2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary. 3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure. 4. Of living in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband.

Dan is also an obsessive list maker, and his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life.

Reasons I love this book

1. I just do, and I think other people will, too. 
2. It reminds me of two of my most favorite books: High Fidelity & The Lover’s Dictionary. 
3. It is utterly unexpected, authentic, fresh, funny, and deep.

Reasons this book is like High Fidelity

• The lists
• The very wry humor
• Struggling small business owner (borderline anti-) hero
• I inexplicably knew I was going to love it from the first page

Reasons this book is like The Lover’s Dictionary

• The unusual, diary-esque formatting
• Truth bombs abound
• The sad, but still somehow hopeful, tone
• I inexplicably knew I was going to love it from the first page

Reasons I’m a bad little reviewer

Outstanding review books: 40 (shit)
Overdue AND outstanding review books: 31 (double shit)
Cookies stress-eaten trying to figure a way out of this mess: 3, peanut butter

Additional thoughts on reviews

If more books were formatted as lists, I might actually finish them by the deadline and write more listy reviews.

That’s a lie because I’m a garbage person.

Yes, I realize all of these sections are different formatting. Welcome to how I felt having OCD and reading 352 pages of lists that do not have precisely the same formatting. (Cue evil laughter…and also eye twitch)

Reasons you should read this book

1. I guarantee, you haven’t read anything quite like it.
2. It will surprise you and make you feel things.
3. Because I said so?

XOXO