Breakupbabe

By Rebecca Agiewich

Blog: an online diary. My Blog: How I got over the worst, most humiliating breakup in web-recorded history-and became stronger, smarter, and better off without the biggest Loser on the face of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345484002
• ISBN13: 9780345484000
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 337 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Like living life vicariously through a good friend...

My friend, Suzie, actually sent me this book under the guise that it was her mom's best friend's daughter who had written it. However, after reading the book (in one lazy afternoon - perfect!), I realized that she had actually sent it to me because I am constantly on my 30yr old single friend (still Suzie) to dish the details of her life just so that I could live vicariously through her. In the end, I knew that Suz sent me this book so that I could pacify all of my blissfully married delusions and demands to know what it's like out there in the dating world of grownups. I was thrilled to hear that it was everything I had imagined and it led me spend the rest of the evening conjecturing how I would be faring if I were still out there. Long story short, the read was smooth and satisfying, and remained juicy without bogging the reader down with inane details. It was light and airy and akin to any the embarrassingly addictive soap operas, MTV specials or quirky romance movies that we all secretly love to watch but hate to admit to. And, it was particularly enjoyable for a west coaster like me who has been to many of the places mentioned. This book is as fun as reading someone's diary... but better because it is actually well-written. Best of all, it will take you back to all the enjoyable memories you might have of dating all the wrong guys for all the right reasons...

Breakup Babe as time travel therapy

As an on again/off again fan of Ms. Agiewich's blog, I couldn't help picking up her book after hearing of her many promotional appearances all around the Northwest where she's been winning fans during Q & A with her real life wit and charm. With so much positive feedback circulating through local bookstores about the warmth and humility in her live appearances, my curiosity in the life of Breakup Babe was piqued once again! What's so great about Rebecca Aigewich's writing is her unrelenting honesty and the depth of its delivery throughout the story. By now most of us know her book stems from her once anonymous blog diary where she exposed her heartache and obsession with the drama of a teenager and the wit, and self reflection, of a woman solidly in her thirties. Her novel holds true to this courageous theme and makes for a very smart, very grown-up revisit back to my own obsessive teen years and my mid-twenties. While those are not my favorite years to relive, especially now that I've grown myself up and am living a gentle, non-heartache riddled life, I loved the time travel with Breakup Babe by my side. Giggling constantly over Aigewichs smack-on prose, I was able to poke fun at a few of my own still tender love life bruises and reflect on how the "Sexy Boy" in my own story eventually led me to "The One". It's true that this super funny and refreshingly arranged novel may not be for everyone. But word has it that Rebecca Aigewich is a writer's writer. So sooner or later you'll find one of her books in your lap, compelled to time travel your own life through her vision.

Pretty darn good

You know, there's something fundementally unappealing about the main character, Rachel. Cheated on, lied to, and dumped by her boyfriend of two years, Rachel spends an unholy amount of time obsessing over the breakup and crying in her office. For months, crying in her office. A thirty-four year old woman after a not-very-long relationship crying in her office for months. Does this strike anyone else as, well, mental? Most people need a week of sappy movies and some cookie dough-- not pharmacuticals to just get them through the day without a nervous breakdown. She sleeps with guys left and right. She gets emotionally attached if a guy looks at her with anything other than disgust. She thinks about a boy she was with for two months over a decade ago. She's pathetic! She's co-dependent! She has no ability to stand on her own two feet! And yet she's loveable. And funny. Rachel is everything I hate about women-- but she does it with style. I loved the incorporated blog into the text of the novel. I loved the comments from her loyal readers. I loved Lil' Rockcliming Spy and hated the Doctor. And even though her replacement names for all her characters was really annoying at first, I got used to it. Once I got started with this book, I got sucked in. The ending was very satisfactory and I closed the cover very entertained. And that's what it's really about.

I don't usually laugh aloud while reading...

...but there were several scenes, phrases, and lines of dialogue that I busted out laughing over - or had to read out loud to my husband/daughter/friend/whoever was within earshot. Lots of nights I read past bedtime. Some cringing as scenes unfolded in comic disaster. The writing is snappy and punchy without being cutesie; real and raw without being morose or sentimental; self-deprecating without being self-pitying. This book holds just the right amount of sarcasm (lots) and self-realization (even more). Much of the "been there, done that" feeling one could chalk up to demographics - the main character and I are the same thirtysomething age and live in the same rainy little northwestern city and don't I recognize one of those HBIBs? - but I suspect it's more a result of Agiewich being spot-on with her descriptions of the interior and exterior of the post-breakup dating world; things we can all - male or female, young or old, north or south - can relate to. She strikes a great chord here with both an "I Will Survive" self-sufficiency and an angry "You Oughta Know" Alanis-ness - all the while continuing to look for love in all the wrong places. It's a charming mix of tough and vulnerable, and her commentary on dating in the age of the internet is smart, witty, and timely. Our narrator Rachel starts the book hardly able to extricate herself from her friends' couch, and ends it atop the summit of Mt. Rainier. So perfectly symbolic: the climb, the journey, the self-reliance, the doing the insurmountable, the going within and gathering strength and pushing past the comfort zone and coming out the other side a whole new person. Doing that which we are not sure we can do and, in the process, proving to ourselves that we are stronger and braver than we ever imagined. Loved it.

Funny, Witty and True

I caught some of the author's blogs several years ago and am happy that the finished product is just like the blog -- bittersweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and totally realistic. The dumping soup on her ex-boyfriend scene is priceless. Yes, there are now a bazillion books on thirtysomethings struggling to move past the pieces of broken relationships, and I think I've read 1.2 million of those. So trust me when I tell you that this is a REALLY great read.