Must Love Dogs: A Novel Hardcover – July 8, 2002

Sarah Hurlily is a mid-thirties, divorced preschool teacher and part of a large, Irish-Catholic Boston family. When her older sister Carol decides Sarah has spent enough time mourning her divorce from ex-husband Kevin, Carol places a personal ad for her sister: "Voluptuous, sensuous, alluring and fun. Barely 40 DWF seeks special man to share starlit nights. Must love dogs." Minor complication: Sarah doesn’t have a dog.But before Sarah has time to meet anyone from the personal ad, she discovers her attraction to Bob Connor, father of Austin, one of her young students. Unfortunately, Sarah’s interest appears to be destined for the unrequited love bin because (1) dating the parent of a student is NOT a good idea and (2) Bob seems to have eyes only for the ravishing June, Sarah’s twenty-something and perfectly gorgeous assistant, and (3) Bob is only separated from his wife. What if they get back together?Telling herself Bob is not for her, Sarah borrows her brother Michael’s St. Bernard puppy, awkwardly named “Mother Teresa,” and meets John Anderson, who has responded to her ad, at the dog park. John, too, has borrowed a dog for the occasion, a Yorkie.John has promise, but Sarah still has Bob on her brain, and it turns out Bob isn’t as wrapped up in June as Sarah originally thought. Sarah runs into Bob away from school when she discovers he lives in a trailer park where Dolly, Sarah’s father’s diminutive girlfriend lives. Dolly, who refers to herself in third-person and who has no idea how truly tacky she actually is, is determined to beat out her rival for Billy Hurlily’s affections, the rich and well-bred Marlene, who is a generous patron of the Cambridge Symphony and who is rumored to have slept her way through the symphony, section by section. Billy, Sarah’s widowed father, and the patriarch of the Hurlily clan, is enjoying playing the field. And tormenting Dolly.Enter a third candidate for Sarah’s consideration, Ray Santia, a man with a puppy named Creases, who is curiously similar to Wrinkles, the divine June’s puppy. Sarah borrows Wrinkles to attract Ray, succeeds, and then flees his apartment after their first date when she realizes sex wasn’t what she had in mind.As Sarah works through healing from her unhappy marriage and as she contemplates what she wants in a new relationship, she provides support for her sixteen-year-old niece, Siobhan, and for her unhappily married brother, Michael, owner of Mother Teresa. As Sarah reflects on the pitfalls of growing up and on the tragedy of two unhappy parents locked in a miserable marriage and responsible for two very young daughters, she decides to put her past behind her and to create her future. Must Love Dogs is a warm, charming story. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will leave you smiling.

For more reviews, please visit http://fortheloveoftheread.blogspot.comPart of the reason I picked this book up was because I ADORE the movie. I try to walk into books that have become film adaptations remembering that movie people and book people are different and are looking for different things. I was pleasantly surprised with how many similarities there were in the book and movie. That being said, it means I adored this book!Sarah is a bit more flighty than I was expecting, although that added a certain charm to her. She's a bit more lighthearted and less serious, which helped make the humor in this book move right along. Her entire family is crazy and dysfunctional, but all of the characters are excellent. Carol, Sarah's sister, is actually one of my favorite characters. She is the know-it-all who always gets news first, and she shamelessly meddles in Sarah's love life the entire time. She is the character with the quirky one-liners. Michael, Sarah's brother, is the one who has the most heartfelt lines in the book. He is struggling in his marriage to make it work, and he often has pretty good insight to share with Sarah. Sarah's dad is a bit of a womanizer, but that's what makes him so appealing.Aside from the characters, the story is mostly a quest for Sarah to find love after having been divorced. She tries answering personal ads before putting her own out there. Some of the men she meets/talks to are terrifying, but the author spun them in such a way that the whole thing seems funny. Even the parts of the book that feel dysfunctional and almost make you want to cringe are written in such a way that you can't help but laugh.Overall, I thought this book was good. The characters are well developed, with distinct personality traits. The story moves along at a good pace and kept me hooked the whole way through. I would read more by this author, including more in this series.

Okay, so a 4.5, maybe.Here's what I love: voice, easy going prose, quirky characters, winey mac&cheese.Here are my issues: the ending was a little more ambiguous than I like and Sarah found herself in some situations that embarrassed me on her behalf. Now, that said, she is a likably flawed character. She reminds me of some of Kristan Higgins's characters in how she does things while I'm grimacing and shouting, "No! No! Don't do that!" That is a me thing. I have no hesitations in recommending this book especially if you like heroines with a Bridget Jones bent.Here's the deal: Sarah is divorced, and her nosy family thinks she needs to get back into dating. Her first attempt = running into her dad. *face palm* She fell for it because of how the ad said the guy liked dogs SO she incorporates that sentence into her own ad even though she doesn't have a dog. But she kinda does because her brother has a Saint Bernard names Mother Theresa who's adding to his marital strife. She kinda has the hots for another dog-borrower, John Anderson, but she's also attracted to the father of one of the kids in her preschool, Bob Connors. Her dad is dating the flamboyant Dolly as well as at least one other woman. Hilarity ensues.Cook does this fabulous, fabulous character arc for Sarah, and really it's her story, a story about how she goes from depressed to taking charge of her life again. That kind of story could've easily been heavy-handed, but Cook writes it with a subtle touch. As to the men of the story, it's hard to get their perspective because the novel is told in first person from Sarah's POV. This is one of the rare occasions, I would say I liked the movie as much as the book. They're different but in a complementary way. I'd recommend both.

I was getting to really like this book as I was reading it. Claire Cook handles a consort of characters with ease - although some are rather more chariactures than realistic people, but they were fun. A large family of siblings with their relationship worries and personalities drew me into the story about Sarah who is looking for love after divorce. And then the book stopped and before I knew it I was reading the trailer for the next 'episode'. It felt like people had started clapping before the last notes of a musical performance. Irritated by the sudden appearance of the sample of book 2 before I had realised that book 1 was over, I was left disappointed. So there was going to be more of the same with hardly anything happening and no real insight into why one man ends up being the good-un and another, who seemed to have a lot of charm, turns out to be a user? Well, I'm not buying any more. If I want a soap opera I'll watch television.

Nice easy read.

I particularly liked the supporting characters in this tale. Sarah's family are lovely and eccentric, especially her father. I also enjoyed the scenes in the classroom reading about Sarah at work with the children. Dolly, too, was great fun.

Interesting, quite different but bad ending. Have to buy next book to find solution, but will it be in the next book or will it keep going on

really loved this book,its full of laughs, crazy loveable family and i shall read it again when ive forgotten some of it. will make you smile