Friday January 13, 2006
Just for laughs
By MARSHA MAUNG
It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken
Author: Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers, 273 pages
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Greg Behrendt obviously decided to write It’s Called a Breakup because of the insane amount of publicity he got from his last book He’s Just Not That Into You. Notice the titles and you should be prepared for Behrendt to not be very nice to you. First, he and his co-writer tell you that your boyfriend/ fiancé/ live-in/ husband is not as in love with you as you are with him. And then he comes up with another book to tell you that you deserve to be broken up with.
But truly, “Even with all the mayonnaise in the world, you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.” Quote, unquote: Amiira Behrendt’s granny.
Filled with funny anecdotes and stories that will make your heart break and your view about the world a little more positive, Breakup is an entertaining book. However, if you’re looking for a book to tell you how to deal with the pain and struggle one has to go through after a breakup, forget it. Considering that Greg Behrendt was one of the writers for the madly popular TV series Sex in the City, you should expect nothing but extremely funny anecdotes on how to survive the days that drags on after a breakup.
“Dear Greg”-type Q & As are inserted at various points throughout the book but the answers may not be the answers you want to hear. Like I said, he’s not the most sensitive person on the planet. The Q & As are compiled from interviews held with friends and other breakup survivors who share their gory (and sad and embarrassing) moments with the readers.
Imagine a woman buying her guy a plasma TV only to suffer a heartbreaking breakup resulting in her leaving behind the guy, her stuff and, yes, the plasma TV! You’ll enjoy reading those stories because even if you’re not currently suffering from a breakup, you’ll still read them and go ? “Wow, glad I didn’t buy him a plasma TV.”
In Breakup, Greg and Amiira Behrendt reveal and write about their weakest moments – when they got dumped, how they picked themselves up and how they found each other. Instead of a book written by two persons, this book reads like it is two books written by two persons. With separate personal notes from the authors and separate accounts of their past experiences, it might leave the reader a little perplexed during the initial chapters. The good thing is, however, this book covers just about everything there is to cover related to breakups. They even have a special For the Guys Only section towards the end of the book, with a Greg-style comment: “You must be desperate. This is a girls’ book”!
Throughout Breakup, the authors make it a point to call their readers a wide variety of names ranging from “Superfox” to “Breakup Warrior”, from “Kiddo” to “Sexy Lady”. This gives me the impression that the book was exclusively written for the younger generation. It might not sit well with a seasoned breaker-upper – like me, say.
Useful Breakup is not. Entertaining? I’d say it definitely is. So, even if you’re not in that horribly unfortunate situation right now, you just might want to pick it up for a laugh.
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