The Opposite of Love
By Julie Buxbaum
(Bantam Discovery, Mass Market Paperback, 9780553592245, 400pp.)
Publication Date: April 2009
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover, Paperback, Compact Disc, Hardcover
Categories: Literary
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With perfect pitch for the humor and heartbreak of everyday life, Julie Buxbaum has fashioned a heroine who will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has loved and lost and loved again.
When successful twenty-nine-year-old Manhattan attorney Emily Haxby ends her happy relationship just as her boyfriend is on the verge of proposing, she can’t explain to even her closest friends why she did it. Somewhere beneath her sense of fun, her bravado, and her independent exterior, Emily knows that her breakup with Andrew has less to do with him and more to do with...her. “You’re your own worst enemy,” her best friend Jess tells her. “It’s like you get pleasure out of breaking your own heart.”
As the holiday season looms and Emily contemplates whether she made a huge mistake, the rest of her world begins to unravel: she is assigned to a multimillion-dollar lawsuit where she must defend the very values she detests by a boss who can’t keep his hands to himself; her Grandpa Jack, a charming, feisty octogenarian and the person she cares most about in the world, is losing it, while her emotionally distant father has left her to cope with this alone; and underneath it all, fading memories of her deceased mother continue to remind her that love doesn’t last forever.
How this brave, original young heroine finally decides to take control of her life and face the fears that have long haunted her is the great achievement of Julie Buxbaum’s marvelous first novel. Written with the authority, grace, and wisdom of an author far beyond her years, The Opposite of Love heralds the debut of a remarkable talent in contemporary fiction.
Julie Buxbaum is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School. The Opposite of Love is her first novel. She currently lives in London.
"Gripping, wise and extremely refreshing. I loved it."—Marian Keyes, author of Sushi for Beginners
“A brilliant examination of loss, romance, and the jagged, imperfect, utterly realistic way we fall and stay in love. A stunning debut.” —Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters
"You’ll want to keep reading all night.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Buxbaum makes an appealing debut with this tale of… [a] single-gal-in-the-city [who] finds her white-knuckle hold on life and love slowly slipping.”—Publishers Weekly
“A very funny book . . . That a tale about a modern young woman who squarely confronts her garden-variety challenges can feel this fresh is striking.” —Washington Post
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