When successful twenty-nine-year-old Manhattan attorney Emily Haxby ends her happy relationship just as her boyfriend is on the verge of proposing, she can't explain to even her closest friends why she did it. Somewhere beneath her sense of fun, her bravado, and her independent exterior, Emily knows that her break-up with Andrew has less to do with him and more to do with her. Whilst the holiday season looms and Emily contemplates whether she has made a huge mistake the rest of her world begins to unravel.She is assigned, by a boss who can't keep his hands to himself, to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit where she must defend the very values she detests. Grandpa Jack, a charming, feisty octogenarian and the person she cares most about in the world is deteriorating with the onset of Alzheimer's and her emotionally distant father leaves her to cope with this alone. And underneath it all, fading memories of her dead mother continue to remind her that love doesn't last for ever. As Emily takes control of her life and comes to terms with issues she didn't even know she had, she finally realizes that what she wanted was there all along...
This book is about a women, who lost herself for a little while, in order to find herself.
This book begins with Emily looking great on paper -- 29 years old with a doctor boyfriend, who wants to marry her, and a 5 year associate at one of the top law firms in the city. In reality, she is emotionally stunted, hates her job, carrying the emotional baggage of her mother's death and her father's hands off parenting. As her burdens grow, she starts searching and searching for answers to why she did the things she did, and begins to work on herself.
I totally connected with the hollow feeling our heroine described. How many of her expectations fell flat, and she was left disappointed. I found myself very vested in Emily's life and her love life. I shed some tears as I rode her emotional roller coaster.
I am a fan of Buxbaum's style. She blends the heartfelt and sad, while balancing it out with humor.
