The Breakup Doctor by Phoebe Fox

The Breakup Doctor by Phoebe Fox is an intelligent chick lit read!  If I had friends or daughters in the dating world,  I'd give them this book that is full of excellent dating/breakup advice dispersed in a fun story.  What a great debut novel for Phoebe Fox!

Brook is a therapist who is looking for new employment after the counseling center she worked at is literally destroyed by a wrecking ball in front of her eyes.  In her quest for a new direction, she begins a newspaper advice column "The Breakup Doctor" and begins counseling clients where she gives the rational advice that she was constantly giving to her good friends about the dating world.  Brook is lucky to have childhood best friend Sasha who is her best cheerleader during her journey  - but Brook doesn't understand Sash'a way of jumping into relationships and irrationally dealing with the breakups - putting visine in orange juice, searching emails for evidence of wrongdoings, etc.    Brook is very rational and in control of her emotions.

When Brook is faced with her own break-up, she is faced with "physician, heal thyself."  During this break-up process, she does not handle herself in the rational way she prescribes for her clients.  Lots of hilarity ensues at her unravelling, but in the process of going through her emotions she begins to understand that life has lots of "gray" areas as things cannot be seen in black and white.  Not only does she learn more about the romantic world, but also in dealing with family members.

There were lots of layers to this book and I really enjoyed it!  Fun beach read!  I'd give it  4 stars!  As I mentioned before, this book would be great (but subtle way of you giving them advice) navigation guide for those in the middle of the crazy new dating world with all the technology/internet involved!

From Amazon:

A broken leg requires an orthopedist. A broken car requires a mechanic. And a broken heart requires a specialist too. The Breakup Doctor is now in.

Call Brook Ogden a matchmaker-in-reverse. Let others bring people together; Brook, licensed mental health counselor, picks up the pieces after things come apart. When her own therapy practice collapses, she maintains perfect control: landing on her feet with a weekly advice-to-the-lovelorn column and a successful consulting service as the Breakup Doctor: on call to help you shape up after you breakup.

But when her own relationship suddenly crumbles, Brook finds herself engaging in almost every bad-breakup behavior she preaches against. And worse, she starts a rebound relationship with the most inappropriate of men: a dangerously sexy bartender with anger-management issues—who also happens to be a former patient.

As her increasingly out-of-control behavior lands her at rock-bottom, Brook realizes you can’t always handle a messy breakup neatly—and that sometimes you can’t pull yourself together until you let yourself fall apart.