Really didn't care about any of the characters (especially the main, Marcy). It also really dragged.

If ever there was a book to make a cheating husband make me lough out loud this was it! Marcy Hammer has been mostly happily married for 33 years and somewhat out of the blue her husband decides to leave the home citing stress and maybe a mistress!

Let me first say I don't tend to read books with characters that are a generation before me - I just can't relate and usually can't connect with the character and the things they are experiencing, so I avoid. I chose to review this one because I was intrigued by the synopsis and of course the cover! I am so glad I did! I was laughing out loud and even interrupted my mom reading a few times to share the funny quips by the author - I loved her outlook and hope that I can look at life the way she does. She reminded me that even a stressful time in life you can find laughter.

This is a great debut and I will anxiously await her next one!

I won a copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program in the hopes that I would leave an honest review.

This book was a fairly quick read for me, and I pretty much couldn't put it down because it was like watching a train wreck. Basically it appealed to my baser, reality tv loving instincts. I really related to Marcy as a stay at home mom whose life has been determined by my husband's career, very much like hers. I'm honestly okay with that, for the most part, and so is she, but that made it really easy for me to slide into her size 8 Jimmy Choo's. This also meant that I spent the entirety of the story rooting for her and preparing to egg her husband's car if needed, because it became personal to me.

There were several times where I didn't agree with the choices that Marcy was making, but I also can't honestly say that I would have actually made different choices myself. It has to be hard to decide to just throw away three decades of wedded bliss because of one affair, especially when your whole existence has pretty much revolved around your husband and his career. The unknown can be scary and I would probably want to cling to what I knew too. So ultimately I can understand why Marcy made the choices that she did, even though I think they were stupid (and I wanted her to be a strong, independent woman immediately.)

I was also really bothered by Harvey's obsession with women's bra sizes. It was a detail that absolutely makes sense in terms of the story and his profession, but it seems a bit creepy to me. Although that did make it easier for me to tell Marcy she should dump him like yesterday's garbage.

4 out of 5 stars.

I loved this book! I adore the cover. At first glance, this book looks like a light, happy, chick lit romance. Though it does have light and fun elements, so much of the book is very emotional and much deeper than chick lit. Despite being younger than Marcy, I really related to her in a lot of ways, particularly in her relationship with her mother and her children. The issue of dealing with loss in this book--loss of marriage, losing the mother she once knew due to aging and cancer--is handled beautifully. This book could be just downright depressing, but the author handled the subject in such a way that you can find the positives in a potentially miserable situation. Poor Marcy just has one problem after another thrown at her, and the author made it easy to root for her throughout the whole book since she was such a likable character.
I loved the author's writing style! I flew through this book's effortless writing because I had to know what happened next. It was a hard one to put down! This is an excellent debut novel, and I look forward to future books by Marilyn!

Favorite Quotes:

Michael the Premed was my college boyfriend. He owned one pair of jeans ripped at the knee, played Frisbee on the quad, and ate whole overly ripe cucumbers while walking his pet hamster, King George, on a leash. He was mine from spring of freshman year until January of junior year, when he scored an A in organic chemistry. That day, when I brought a celebratory jug of sangria to his dorm room, I noticed a diaphragm in a pink case on his university-issued dresser. I confronted him, eyeball to eyeball, diaphragm in hand. And that was the last time I ever trusted a guy who walked a rodent with the name of a king.

I’m an only child… And that was poor planning. If my parents were both going to be sick at once, they should have had more children.

I waited my turn as a broad woman in front of me placed her order. She was wearing red pants adorned with minuscule pink whales, a canvas belt with dolphins, and a pink polo shirt with a goldfish logo. Personally, I thought, when I’m dressing, I never mix fish.

My father had requested that his body be donated to the Yale school of Medicine, making Dad the first person in my family to go to the Ivy League.

My eyes darted to the top of his head. Harvey had hair- a toupee perched on his skull as though it belonged almost anywhere else. I vowed not to ask what he fed it.


My Review:

Lift and Separate was superb, impressive, divine, slyly amusing, and smartly written. Ms. Rothstein is a skilled and crafty wordsmith who made magic on the page. I could only find just this one marvelous book listed for my new favorite mega-talented author, which greatly disappointed and distressed me as I greedily hoped to find a long list of similar treasures to add to my reading calendar. Her writing sparkled with clever humor, keen observations, and witty insights. I remained thoroughly engaged with her deftly written narration from page one to the very last word. I adored this story and reveled in Marcy’s evolution, and now feel a bit adrift and at a loss from having to disengage from her tale, as I so enjoyed being in her head. More please Ms. Rothstein, and soon!

A great book about what it is like when you have to start over. Well written and done with much humor.