Review: The Breakup Club

The Breakup Club
by Melissa Senate
Publication Date: January 01, 2006
Red Dress Ink
5/5 Stars

The Breakup Club by Melissa Senate is one of those novels that is told from multiple viewpoints. The interesting and unique thing about this book, however, is that a lot attention and detail is given to each chapter, and each viewpoint is told from a first-person narrative.

The key characters are: Lucy, mother of a preteen who is happily married until she discovers her husband is planning to leave her for New Year’s; Roxy, a woman who hops a train to Manhattan after leaving her fiance at the alter; Christopher, a single father who has to deal with the crazy playground-mommies and fighting for custody of his baby; and Miranda, Lucy’s younger sister who seems to only get dumped time and time again and can’t figure out what she is doing wrong. (And is waiting for her ex-boyfriend to crawl back to her).

The Breakup Club deals with heartbreak, and what happens to the heartbroken ones once they’ve been dumped. In each of the characters, Melissa Senate explores the various scenarios that can take place. Miranda has to go through pining for her ex-boyfriend who has clearly moved on with another woman. Lucy has to deal with her husband of 10+ years deserting her, while trying to placate her very angry and upset daughter. Roxy must decide if her ex-fiance, who is determined to win her back, is truly the right guy for her since he seems to care so much for her. Christopher has to put his life together being a single father while fending off one of his neighbors.

I loved this novel and how it explored so many angles of heartbreak and moving on. Despite there being four characters and four viewpoints, Melissa Senate managed to give them all enough time so their stories were well-developed. Having a male character in there was also fascinating. This novel was funny, touching and down-to-earth all at once. I really couldn’t find a thing in it that I didn’t enjoy! There is a touch of both single city-girl lit as well as marriage lit and mom lit.

Overall, I highly recommend The Breakup Club to all Melissa Senate fans, and to anyone who enjoys a truly good novel.

reviewed by Rian Montgomery

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