The Accidental Proposal

by Matt Dunn

[Leah]

The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook by Matt Dunn would most probably land on my list of Top 20 Favourite Books Ever if I were ever to attempt a list like that. (I’m not going to. Ever.) So it’s kind of disappointing to me that the two further Ed and Dan books have been so… well, boring. I read a bit of Ex-Girlfriends United before giving up and although I have managed to start and finish The Accidental Proposal, I feel as if it was a bit of a waste of time. What made the first novel to feature Ed and Dan so great was the banter, was the story as Ed tries to get himself out of the rut he’d gotten into with his ex before she walked out on him precisely for being in that rut so he sets out on getting fit again. It was funny, it was fresh, but two books later and I think it’s time Ed and Dan are retired (honestly, I think they shouldn’t have had two further books, no matter how much I like them as characters and I wish even futher I hadn’t attempted to read them).

The Accidental Proposal is basically Ed and Dan sitting in the Admiral Jim for 85% of the novel chatting about three things: women, Ed’s forthcoming wedding, and Ed’s girlfriend Sam’s potential affair. The other 15% of the novel is filled with Ed worrying about whether he’s good enough for Sam and whether they’re really getting married, with some scenes thrown in with Sam to show us, you know, that she’s still there. That’s it! There isn’t really a plot to it, it’s basically just Ed panicking that he’s not good enough/the wedding isn’t a “real” wedding/Dan being a plank/Ed and Sam being evasive and just not talking. It’s quite astounding how little talking couples do in novels (when more often than not a quick conversation would sort everything out perfectly) and Ed and Sam are the same. Ed spends the entire novel doubting himself (something which gets old, fast) and if he just went up to Sam and ASKED her these questions… Well, things might have been different and it might have been a much, much better inner monologue because, by God, can Ed go on and on and on and on and on.

If I’m being brutally honest (and why shouldn’t I be? I read the book, after all; I spent time reading it) it seems Matt had a vague idea for a third Ed and Dan book but didn’t really have the material to fill it, so the novel just falls flat on its face. It’s basically just a filler novel. There’s no purpose to it, no real sense of anything having been accomplished when you start the novel as to when you finish it. I truly think one Ed and Dan book was enough and as a massive, massive fan of The Ex-Boyfriends Handbook it does cheapen that novel by the two that have followed because they haven’t been anywhere close to as good and the characters have become charicatures of themselves. Ed’s become a whine-y girl, frankly, and Dan is just a total and utter idiot. I can’t remember if Dan was as stupid in the first novel, but it’s as if he’s had his brain removed and every conversation was double the length it should have been as Ed tried to explain things to Dan because Dan was acting the idiot and didn’t seem to get anything. A few instances of stupidity can be amusing, don’t get me wrong, but Dan was just so uncomprehending during every single page that it just got tired.

I felt sad reading The Accidental Proposal because it just wasn’t very good and it ended far too abruptly. There was a potential storyline there with Dan and an ex, and we didn’t even get to see how it ended. So I basically just sat there wondering “Well, what was the point of that?” Why start something and not give us the pay-off? I can’t see there being a fourth Ed/Dan novel and if there was, I probably wouldn’t read it, so why not round off the series and give us the answer as to whether Dan is or is not capable of growing up once and for all? Three novels now Dan has played the joker, the devil-may-care character, and when we finally might get to see some kind of pay-off it ends before we even get an answer. You invest time in a book, in characters, and it’s so disappointing when it ends that way. It’s like they ran out of pages, or something. It was a disappointing end to what had a really, really good first novel. It just never managed to re-capture that magic of the first book and I think it’s now time to bid Ed and Dan adieu once and for all…