Introduction

When her ex-boyfriend, Trip, gets engaged to Hollywood's latest It Girl, Manhattan attorney Brooke Miller plans to attend the wedding. Who says a modern girl can't stay friends with her ex? Besides, Brooke's got her sexy Scottish fiancé, Douglas, to take as her date. Okay, so maybe he's not exactly her fiancé, but they're living together in his apartment, so she'll be getting the ring any minute, right? Wrong.

After a fight leaves her without a boyfriend (much less a fiancé) just days before the wedding, Brooke faces the ultimate humiliation of attending her ex-boyfriend's nuptials alone. Desperate to find a replacement to fill Douglas's kilt, Brooke concocts an outrageous plan to survive the wedding and win the man of her dreams, all with her dignity ever-so-slightly intact.

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Excerpt

You know that feeling you get when everything seems to be right with the world? When the planets seem to be in alignment? One of those days when you’re actually running on time, your apartment is (relatively) clean, and you haven’t gotten into an argument with your mother/ best friend/ boss/ therapist in at least a week? That was exactly how I felt as I walked up the steps to Trip’s wedding. I was wearing an impossibly sexy vintage Halston dress (if only two sizes too small) and brand new stiletto heels (that I could almost even walk in), flanked on either side by my two best friends. Nothing could go wrong.

When I told my mother that I was going to Trip’s wedding, she said, “Trip’s wedding? Trip who?” (As if Jewish girls from Long Island know that many men named Trip.) “Trip from law school Trip? What woman, in her right mind, would want to go to that?”

Vanessa, my best friend from law school, initially RSVP’d ‘no’ to the wedding, since she assumed that I wouldn’t want to attend. When she found out that I wanted to go, she later called Trip to tell him that her “big case” had settled and that she and her husband, Marcus, would be there—but not before asking me approximately four hundred and seventy-two times if I “wanted to talk about it?”

And when I told the partner I worked for at my firm that I would be out of town for a four day weekend to take my boyfriend to L.A. to go to Trip’s wedding, even he asked me, “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

I could have sworn that I even saw my therapist look at me sideways when I told her that I was going to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding.

Okay, so I understand that this isn’t exactly your typical “girl goes to wedding” kind of situation. But, just because Trip is my ex-boyfriend from law school, don’t take that to mean that I care more about this wedding or am more nervous about this wedding, or that this wedding is any different from any other wedding in any way at all! Because it’s not. Trip’s wedding is just another wedding. And Trip is just another friend of mine. Even if he is my ex-boyfriend.

What’s an ex-boyfriend anyway? Everyone has an ex-boyfriend. Everyone. I mean, even some lesbians I know have them. Nothing special about them, right? I don’t care any more or less about him just because he’s my ex-boyfriend. He’s just a person. And staying friends with your ex is a piece of cake. I barely ever think about him and how he may or may not have been my last chance at happiness in this cruel and unforgiving world.

Really. I have the satisfaction of having a great career and a great independent life filled with fabulous friends and, of course, even more fabulous shoes. I am such a woman of the new millennium that I can go work a full ten hour day, keep in touch with friends through email, do a few errands on the way to meet my friends for dinner, and then go meet cute guys over martinis at the bar after I eat. All in three and a half inch heels. I am such a woman of the millennium that I can do anything, even things that previous generations would have thought completely impossible—Betty Friedan be damned! I can even stay friends with an ex-boyfriend.

Copyright 2007 by Brenda Janowitz. All rights reserved. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. How would you feel if your ex-boyfriend was getting married before you were? How would you feel if your ex was marrying a fabulously famous Hollywood actress? Would you ever attend an ex-boyfriend’s wedding? Have you ever searched for an ex-boyfriend online or checked an ex’s wedding registry?

2. What is it about Douglas that Brooke loves so much? Why can’t she let him go? Have you ever been with someone you simply could not get over?

3. Brooke thinks that Trip’s family is amazing and Kennedy-esque, even though they’re racist and wouldn’t help Trip find a job after law school—it was Brooke’s family that did that. Why does Brooke think they are so great, and at what point does she begin to see things—and the people in her life—for what they really are?

4. How do Brooke’s and Vanessa’s relationships mirror each other? How do Brooke and Vanessa mirror each other? In relationships with friends, do you tend to be close with people who are most like you or most unlike you? What about in your romantic relationships?

5. Brooke and Jack initially do not get together because they work at the same law firm. Have you ever dated someone at work? Would you ever date someone you work with, even if your company had strict rules against dating co-workers?

6. Nina, a girl Brooke was unkind to in high school, tries to sabotage her. Do you believe in karma and that the bad things you do in life come back to haunt you?

7. Jack dons a kilt for Brooke’s ex-boyfriend’s wedding. What’s the craziest thing someone has done for you out of love? What’s the craziest thing you would do for love?

8. Why do you think Brooke cuts off her hair in the end? What does this symbolize? Have you ever gone through a physical change that revealed how you were feeling on the inside?

9. Do you think that Brooke and Jack ultimately stay together? Why or why not?

10. The novel is told from Brooke’s perspective. How do you think it would be different if it were told from Jack’s?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Branda Janowitz's web site
»	Author Bio
»	Author Tour Dates
»	Reviews & Interviews
»	Crazy Wedding Stories

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