On Sale: Now
Paperback
ISBN: 9780061461361
From the author of PRETTY LITTLE MISTAKES --- Everyone around Jennifer Johnson is getting married, while she's still single and stuck writing ad copy about men's dress socks. Launched on a humiliating and hilarious quest to find Prince Charming at any cost --- including agonizing online dates, diet-clinic cults, drag-queen fights, and a debilitating addiction to Cinnabon icing, JENNIFER JOHNSON is a cautionary tale about getting what you want - and how that may be the worst thing to happen to you.
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“You might think this is just chick lit, but keep reading. This brash and funny novel plays with the form, with a dark, intelligent and wholly unexpected conclusion…Jennifer is an uncomfortable, wickedly funny and ultimately likable…the book moves out of its chick lit conventions and into wonderfully interesting territory…McElhatton does a great job…the best laugh-out-loud moments…This new book evokes chick lit, but it's really a darker, more interesting advancement of it…This novel, written under the rules of a fairy tale genre, brutally succeeds in showing us that the fairy tale doesn't even look good on paper anymore.”
--- Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Born in Chicago, Illinois, Heather McElhatton studied creative writing at the University of London and SACI in Florence, Italy, and received her MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. The author of PRETTY LITTLE MISTAKES, she lives in Minneapolis with her pug, Walter.
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What's the point of telling someone "about yourself" anyway? Nobody tells the truth. Everything means something else. I've learned what a few things really mean the hard way and I've started my own dating profile-to-English translation phrase-book.
- HANDY AROUND THE HOUSE
He will not call a plumber under any circumstances. Ever.
- GOOD WITH MONEY
He's a cheap bastard and will make you go Dutch.Forever.
- FAMILY MAN
He's still married.
- LOVES KIDS
He has kids and no daycare provider.
- MATURE MAN
He's at least fifty, and looks at least sixty-five.
- YOUNG AT HEART
He's trolling for a preteen.
- CASUAL GUY
He wears dirty sweatpants out to dinner.
- METROSEXUAL
He's hoping if he dates one more girl, he won't be gay. Doesn't matter. He's gay.
I hate online dating. I really do. The odds are so stacked against the possibility that you might like and be attracted to a total stranger, who then also likes and is attracted to you, that they cannot be calculated. I've been on so many uncomfortable, if not painful, dates that I'm starting to go out on blind dates armed with a suicide hotline number in my purse.
I don't think I can handle one more nerve-wracking, mind-numbing date/freak-fest/judge-a-thon where we sit across the table picking each other apart, hoping we aren't being picked apart, but of course we are and so one of us ends up crying in the car. Maybe I should just quit this site, although they never let you go without a fight, so you have to click through three more screens that ask you:
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT? CANCELING YOUR ACCOUNT IS PERMANENT AND CANNOT BE UNDONE. YOU WILL LOSE YOUR ENTIRE PROFILE INCLUDING YOUR PICTURES. PLEASE LIST YOUR REASONS FOR LEAVING US HERE. REMEMBER YOU ALSO HAVE THE OPTION TO HIDE YOUR ACCOUNT RATHER THAN CANCEL IT. NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR ACCOUNT IF YOU HIDE IT AND YOU CAN COME BACK ANYTIME TO REACTIVATE.
What they're really saying is:
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT? LET'S REVIEW THE SITUATION. YOU WERE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO COME HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, SO THINGS WERE ALREADY PRETTY BAD, RIGHT? MOST PEOPLE ARE MARRIED BY NOW AND YOU OBVIOUSLY MISSED THAT BOAT. THAT BOAT, SHALL WE SAY, HAS SAILED. YOU LET THE GOOD ONES GET AWAY. YOU KNOW YOU DID, BECAUSE MATHEMATICALLY SPEAKING THERE HAD TO HAV E BEEN SOME GOOD ONES. SO NOW THIS IS WHAT YOU GET AND, FRANKLY, YOU'RE LUCKY TO GET IT, BECAUSE STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, YOU'RE NO SPRING CHICKEN, NO MATTER HOW YOUNG YOU ARE.
For now I'll keep my Exploding Hearts membership. I'm not up to the mental stamina it would take to cancel the account, and besides, who am I to look down on soy farmers or the Russian Mafia?
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