An audio book.
Dan and Gemma (both approaching 30) want to buy a particular house. The book alternates between their PoVs (though there's the same type of humour). We're told about all the frustrations of house-buying with some extra, contrived, additions. Because of finance issues they're required to live with Dan's mother and grandmother for a few months. Mother's 59, is a "Dr" (though doesn't sound like it), and has written a trilogy of books about how awful men are (using her ex-husband as subject-matter). Dan has an Economics degree from Cambridge, but is now doing social work. He doesn't want to borrow from his rich mother.
We learn about Dan and Gemma's early times. She broke with him at least once. He wants to marry, and has a diamond ring that's he's been hiding. Gemma always dismisses the subject. She sees by chance in the street an old heart-throb Alex who she first met when 15 and had lost her virginity with. Alex later phones Gemma's mother, wanting to get in touch now he'd back in the country. Gemma dreams romantically about him. When they meet up for a coffee after a 12 year gap, Gemma realises she likes him too much to risk seeing him again.
Dan's mother is about to gain a boyfriend, James. However, she's just got a 6-figure advance for a follow-up book, and having a man would spoil things.
Dan's father tries to get in contact again. Dan gets his old finance job back (3 times the money but less fulfilling). He's angry when he discovers that Gemma's borrowed from his mum. He suspects that Gemma is having an affair. Alex asks her to leave Dan. She says no. Dan writes an emotional letter to the house owners who are moved by it enough to change their minds about divorcing. They take the house off the market. The grandmother has a heart attack. The mother changes her book so that it's about finding the men who aren't terrible. Dan and Gemma find another house to buy.
The imaginative light humour is what keeps the book afloat. I'm not sure I understand all of the jokes. They're all in the voices of the 2 main characters, but they don't reveal much about the characters. Here are some samples -
- An old car is "A lawnmover with windows"
- "trying to pin down her last abode was like attempting to discover the whereabouts of Atlantis with a boyscout's compass."
- Re computer skills - "I swear an Etch-a-Sketch would be too advanced for her"
- "He might as well have asked me to leap from the 5th floor of a burning building with a box of new-born kittens in my arms and land on my feet."
- "To fall out with him would be like M pissing off the CIA" (not MI6?)
- "sweat-pants with an arse so saggy you could bungee-jump off a suspension bridge with it"
- "I'd prefer to borrow someone's dentures and chew a replica of the Angel of the North in a table leg"
- a noise like "I'd poured battery acid on a dalek and chucked it down a mountain"
- "the couple next to me ... are snogging so furiously that they could have dived for pearls since they last drew breath"
Emotions are personified/objectified - "rage grips me round the throat", "relief ripples through me", etc, etc. Hearts do all manner of things. "winced visibly" doesn't sound right.
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