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How to Break Your Own Heart  By  cover art

How to Break Your Own Heart

By: Maggie Alderson
Narrated by: Catherine Milte
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Editorial reviews

What separates Maggie Alderson’s clever How to Break Your Own Heart from other chick lit offerings is her candid, fully realized portrayal of 37-year-old protagonist Amelia, who is forced to reevaluate her 15-year marriage to frustratingly conventional and overly fastidious husband Ed after she realizes his enthusiasm for having children doesn’t quite match hers.

Catherine Milte’s lively, animated performance guides the listener through this immensely entertaining listen, particularly in her portrayal of Amelia’s affluent, sharp-tongued, and fashion-obsessed friend Kiki, the catalyst for Amelia’s rediscovery of her independence and zest for life.

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of Cents & Sensibility, Pants on Fire, and Mad About the Boy (all published in audio by Bolinda).

Maggie Alderson brings her deep understanding of the human heart to this new novel about the compromises we make in life, and about those rare moments of grace when we decide to risk everything for the chance to be truly, madly and deeply happy.

Amelia Bradlow seems to have everything she needs to be happy - a handsome husband, a beautiful home, money, good looks and a glamour job. Everything, that is, except the thing she wants most - a baby. Ed, her husband, is funny, affectionate and sophisticated but simply not interested in parenthood. He likes his life neat and tidy. And he likes having a wife who attends solely to his needs.

As she approaches 37, Amelia is faced with a life-changing decision, aided and abetted by Kiki, her hopelessly disorganised but ridiculously rich friend. Should Amelia stay in her nearly happy marriage, or expose herself to the vagaries of single life and the distant possibility of meeting someone who wants to start a family?

©2009 Maggie Alderson (P)2009 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

"At last we've found her, the female Seinfeld. Warm, witty, wise and well-dressed, Alderson is the haute couture of humour." (Kathy Lette)

What listeners say about How to Break Your Own Heart

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Lovely distraction

This is the first (entire) book I have finished for pleasure in maybe 20 years… it was a nice combination of funny, serious, emotional, and realistic… I’ll have to check out another of Alderson’s titles.

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An average read

This is not a bad story, but I expected better from Maggie Alderson after listening to "Cents and Sensibility".

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