Review: The Younger Man

The Younger Man
by Sarah Tucker
Red Dress Ink
January 2006
4/5 Stars

Having enjoyed Sarah Tucker’s first novel, but not her second, I was still interested in reading her latest release The Younger Man. Tucker has an interesting, breathless, and detailed way of telling a story that I have to admit intrigues me.

Meet Hazel Chamberlayne. She is almost forty, beautiful, divorced with one child who is about to enter college. Being that she is a divorce lawyer, you would think that she was hardened and not looking for her true love. But strangely that isn’t the case. She has a tight circle of friends (known as “the girls”) all with their own lives and love problems. And things are OK.

Then Joe Ryan starts at her firm, and she is forced to work closely for him. Despite the fact that Joe has a girlfriend of 12 years, they are instantly very attracted to each other. After a date and a non-kiss, Hazel tries to distance herself from him. Joe meanwhile decides that he is in love with Hazel, and breaks off his 12-year relationship with his girlfriend.

At the same time as all of this, Hazel’s friends have dramas of their own. One of her close friends is getting married, and one of her other friends discovers a malignant lump in her breast.

The Younger Man has the elements of Tucker’s first novel that I liked: the first-person, present-tense narrative, the in-depth (sometimes too in-depth) details and conversations, and the suspenseful romance sideplot. The writing itself however is a bit to digest at times, what with the single quote marks around dialogue that can be confusing to American readers. The character also often goes into thoughts in the middle of a narrative, which can be confusing. Somehow though it comes together as a decent novel.

I was a little disappointed with the plot and choices that Hazel makes.

But overall, this was a decent, if unusual, British chick lit novel that many henlit fans will enjoy. But don’t be fooled by the title; this book is barely about dating a younger man, but more about a woman turning 40 and deciding what to do with her life.

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