Review: The Idea of Him and a Giveaway!!

Written By: Holly Peterson

Published By:  William Morrow & Company, April 1, 2014

Length:  384 pages

Source: Publisher, as part of TLC Book Tour in exchange for an honest review

Summary:

Allie Crawford is a once-aspiring screenwriter turned successful public relations executive, mother of two young children, with a marriage that feels more like a hostessing gig than it does a relationship. At thirty-four, she is at a crossroads. Then she meets a head-turning, traffic-stopping beauty at the bar of the famed New York City Tudor Room. When Allie finds her husband Wade locked in their laundry room with this same stunning blonde, a scandal ensues that flips her life on its head. And when the woman wants to befriend Allie, an old flame calls, and a new guy gets a little too close for comfort, Allie starts to think her marriage is more of a façade than something real. Maybe she’s fallen in love not with Wade—but with the idea of him.

This intriguing blonde is Jackie Malone, a business school student at Wharton who appears unannounced in Allie Crawford’s world with an uncomfortable degree of information about her personal and professional life. Showing up at all the same parties, lunches, and with a seemingly quite intimate relationship with Allie’s husband, Jackie is a feisty, gorgeous, leggy fashionista that just might have the key to Allie’s future. If she can only learn to trust her.

As Allie and Jackie search for truth, they uncover scandals, betrayals, and financial crimes worthy of front page headline news. Swiftly-paced and electrifying, The Idea of Him follows their fast-growing friendship and the intimate, sexy conversations they have as Allie takes command of her life and learns to live on new terms that are alternately exciting and terrifying.

Set in present-day Manhattan among the city’s established and up-and-coming power brokers, many of them struggling to regain their equilibrium in a post 2008 crash world, all working various angles—legal and not—in an effort to either get ahead or simply keep up. Smack in the middle of New York’s upwardly mobile meritocracy is the hard-working Allie, refusing to let her working-class past cloud her fabulous present. Her story offers a ringside seat at the lunchtime haunts featured in the pages of Vanity Fair and is a ticket to the exclusive media cocktail parties posted on Guest of a Guest. But as Allie’s world starts closing in on her and she can no longer deny who her husband actually is, she must figure out how to do it all – without him.

The Idea of Him shows a woman determined to pick herself back up and reclaim her life, even as the fear of being alone threatens to lure her down the wrong path. As Allie struggles to care for her children, tend to her demanding boss, and navigate the high jinx in the psychological and financial game-playing happening all around her, we fall in love with her determination to root out the truth, and in doing so, finally put her own interests and needs front and center. Most of all, we see the power of female friendship as an unlikely ally – in the form of the mysteriously seductive Jackie Malone – helps Allie to finally see the truth about her husband. And it sets them both free.(publisher)

My Thoughts:
From the start of this book I'm intrigued by Allie and her relationship with her husband Wade.  He seemed to be moving in faster circles than she was.  Their marriage seemed detached and on the rocks.  There was also the man she worked for, who treated her poorly.  Allie just seemed to be taking direction and demands from both these men, for very little in return.

When Allie meets Jackie, and then catches Jackie and Wade sneaking away during a cocktail party her suspicions are raised higher.  So begins this epic chase of what is Wade really involved in, and how foolish has Allie been.  The story moves quickly,covering a lot of ground in it's pages. 

I enjoyed this book, but I didn't love it.  There were too many times when I wanted to slap Allie and tell her to wake up, to take control of her life and to kick the men out! While I was sympathetic to her plight, she seemed slow to see what she needed to do.  Falling in love with the idea of a man is classic, most women have at minimum lusted after the public personal we've seen of a man. 

I recommend this book to readers who enjoy a little laughter, a little adventure and eventually a woman who finds her way.  

About the Author:
Holly Peterson is the author of The Idea of Him and the New York Times bestseller The Manny. She was a Contributing Editor for Newsweek, an Editor-at-Large for Talk magazine and an Emmy Award–winning Producer for ABC News, where she spent more than a decade covering global politics. Her writing has been published in the New York Times,  Newsweek, Talk, The Daily Beast, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and numerous other publications.
More information:

• Amazon
  
• Holly Peterson's website
• Holly Peterson's Facebook page
• Holly Peterson on Twitter

I read The Idea of Him as part of a TLC Book Tour, and I'm thrilled to be giving away a copy of the book and  this beautiful Andrea Schroder candle.  You may click on the link to learn more.

Simply leave a comment below to be entered to win, include your email address and this giveaway is open to US addresses only.  Giveaway open until April 18, midnight. 

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