4 Stars

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Date of Publication: November 19th, 2019

Genre: General Fiction

Where you can find Twenty-one Truths About Love: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | BookBub

Book Synopsis:

1. Daniel Mayrock loves his wife Jill…more than anything. 
2. Dan quit his job and opened a bookshop.
3. Jill is ready to have a baby. 
4. Dan is scared; the bookshop isn’t doing well. Financial crisis is imminent. 
5. Dan hasn’t told Jill about their financial trouble. He’s ashamed. 
6. Then Jill gets pregnant.

This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances—he wants to become someone.

1. Dan wants to do something special. 
2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary. 
3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure. 
4. Of living in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband.

Dan is also an obsessive list maker, and his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life.

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First Line:

Ways to keep Jill from getting pregnant

Twenty-one Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks

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My Review:

When I started reading Twenty-one Truths about Love, I wasn’t a massive fan of it. I mean, a book that is told through lists. I was expecting to DNF it after the first chapter. Then a funny thing happened. I started to get involved with the book. I began to care about Dan. I wanted to know if he was going to carry out his crazy plan. I wanted to see if he would ever contact his father.

I liked Dan. He had his quirks (don’t we all) and was trying to do his best. He also had an excellent sense of humor. But, he was also insecure. He was jealous of his wife’s first husband, who seemed to be a saint. He felt that he couldn’t live up to his brother’s success. He was also the most affected by his mother’s affair, the divorce, and his father not contacting them again.

I laughed my butt off at his plan to get more money. It wasn’t what he was going to do. But it was how he went about doing it. I liked that he turned that episode into something he learned from.

The end of Twenty-one Truths About Love was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. I had a huge smile when the book ended. The book that I was sure I wouldn’t like ended up being a fantastic book!!

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I would give Twenty-one Truths About Love an Adult rating. There is sex. There is language. There is violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 21 read this book.

I am on the fence if I would reread Twenty-one Truths About Love.  I am on the fence if I would recommend it to family and friends.

**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**