The Big Love
by Sarah Dunn
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316010782
Publisher: Little, Brown
Alison Hopkins speaks --- telling not only of the boyfriend who left her (in the middle of a dinner party he stepped out to buy mustard and never returned) but of her lifelong search for romantic fulfillment. Will she find it? Does true love even exist? Is every romantic involvement with a coworker inevitably doomed? Does sex without commitment always lead to disaster? Is Alison's evangelical Christian upbringing an impediment to her true happiness?
Funnier than any "chick-lit," more poised and accomplished than any other literary debut this season, The Big Love is a big --- hearted, hilariously entertaining novel that has taken readers and critics across America by surprise.
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1. Have you ever had a relationship end in a particularly humiliating way? What did you do? Do you understand why Alison decides to take Tom back?
2. Alison says that when asked what her father does, she usually says that he's a dentist. Is there a piece of your own biographical information that you try to hide if at all possible? Why?
3. Alison spends a lot of time feeling guilty and a lot of time trying to reject that guilt. Basically, she's weighing moral pressures against social norms. Is this something that you've struggled with yourself? How do you work out these kinds of conflicts?
4. Have you ever been in a relationship that included a Kate Pearce figure? How did you handle it?
5. Do you consider yourself a religious person? If so, how much does that guide your dating decisions? Do you know people who have Alison-type conflicts because of their religious upbringing?
6. Why do you think it's always women who are portrayed as wanting to settle down, while men are portrayed as happier to remain single? Is this true, in your experience? What about Alison's friend Cordelia --- do you know women who take her approach to relationships?
7. What do you like best about Alison as a character? Do you think you are similar to her in some ways? How or how not?
8. Why do you think the book ends the way it does? What kind of message does Alison's decision send to you as a reader? Have you ever made a similar decision?
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"The writing is fresh, the characters are just quirky enough without ever verging on cloying, and the ending is hardly the happily-ever-after, misty-eyed Cinderella fable we've come to expect from those disposable Bridget Jones knockoffs...The Big Love is for keeps."
—USA Today
"Dunn elevates the novel from the predictable, with insightful exploration of a woman examining her faith...Dunn's superb writing style gives the book a cozy, conversational feel that serves the story well."
—Miami Herald
"Written with charm and warmth, this entertaining first novel by a TV writer will attract fans of Helen Fielding, Jane Green or Jennifer Weiner. Recommended for any library with young and hip romantic fiction readers."
—Library Journal
"Hilarious beach read that's part Woody Allen neurotic, part 'Sex and the City'-sex obsessed." "Dunn's witty, eerily realistic peek inside Hopkins' head will cause any woman --- or man --- who's been subjected to the dating scene to laugh knowingly."
—Philadelphia Daily News
"The Big Love is a perfect sugary confection, with a surprising center of wistful wisdom...It's like a highlights real from Sex and the City. It's that funny."
—TIME Magazine
"The ground is littered with failed attempts at I-lost-my-boyfriend attempts at comic fiction. But Ms Dunn's book is brighter and funnier than most."
—New York Times
"Sweetly neurotic and utterly believable, Alison charms with her emotional clumsiness and blushing sexual honesty."
—Washington Post
The Big Love..."top-shelf chick lit" that "transcends its genre with 3-D characters and empathy."
—New York Magazine
"Sarah Dunn's keen observations of the unpredictability of life are delightful. This is a wonderfully funny debut novel."
—Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives Club
""A fresh, funny, and sometimes moving tale of love and life at mid-thirty among young professionals in urban Philadelphia, with a narrator who is as intelligent and ingratiating as Jane Eyre.""
—A. R. Gurney, author of Love Letters
