Happiness Sold Separately

By: Lolly Winston

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Elinor Mackey has always done the right things in the right order–college, law school, career, marriage–but now everything’s going wrong. After two painful years of trying, Elinor has learned that she can’t have children. All the doctors can tell her is that it’s probably because of her age. As she turns forty, she withdraws into an interior world of heartbreak.

Elinor’s loving husband, Ted, a successful podiatrist, has always done the right thing, too. Then he meets the wrong woman at the wrong time, and does the wrong thing. Ted’s lover, Gina–a beautiful and kindhearted nutritionist–always eats the right thing, but is unlucky in love and always falls for the wrong men. Soon Ted has to fight to make everything right again.

Can Elinor and Ted’s marriage be saved? The answer is alarmingly fresh and unexpected as New York Times bestselling author Lolly Winston introduces us to characters as memorable as those of Anne Tyler and Nick Hornby, but who are indelibly all her own.©2006 Lolly Winston; (P)2006 Books on Tape

Really

I was very disappointed in this story . No one could make a decision on anything. It made me so mad. The book got me hooked a then just let you hang out on a limb.

Entertaining

The characters were real to life except of course Toby. He was the excitement in the plot.

Excellently written

This book has very believable and likeable characters. In fact, I found that I felt sympathetic to all of the characters, which made it difficult to “root” for any one person. It is well written, and was actually a quite good audiobook. I found myself thinking about it when I was away from my iPod, wondering how it would all turn out. It was brilliant in the way that it covered infertility – having suffered through seven miscarriages myself, I could relate very well to the feelings of the main character as she traversed the painful journal of infertility. This book, while having many light and humorous moments, deals with quite heavy subjects; dealing with the fallout from adultery, divorce, and infertility. All in all, it is a worthwhile read, and one I recommend.

Cutesy and meandering

I bought this audiobook because I've read (and re-read) "Good Grief," Winston's first piercingly funny and adroit novel. I'd hoped that Winston's second effort would be as rewarding, but it simply fell short of the standard she set with "Good Grief." It unfolded slowly, went nowhere remarkable, but quietly offered a gentle trip through audioland.

Although the characters in "HSS" are likable -- almost too likable -- and the prose creative, the plot of this book meanders so much that I found myself distracted by the many secondary characters, and wondering where the story was going.

Since the plot revolves around infertility and the havoc it wreaks in intimate relationships, I'm certain that Winston navigated her book's emotional geography supremely well (as she did so well with mourning and loss in "Good Grief") -- I don't know, since I've never wrestled with the issues that her characters do. However, I felt myself willing the plot to become more than a "chick lit" story, wanting to cheer on the author. Ultimately, as the last "pages" of denoument were read, I found myself wondering why I'd listened to the whole book.

The book's narrator does a terrific job -- that's the good news. Her crisp, wry reading brings alive Winston's prose, and carries the book along.

Difficult story

Lolly Winston's first book, Good Grief, is one of the best books I've read, so I was really looking forward to this one. Winston is a great writer and I enjoyed each of her unique characters. But this is a difficult story all the way through, as you cannot imagine how there can be a happy ending. Without giving away too much, it did not leave me satisfied and I was a little depressed when it was over. However, it is still an well-written novel, and the narrator does a wonderful job with the audio version. Just be prepared that this is a heavy story, dealing with the fallout from adultery, divorce, and infertility.