The book was about a loose 40 year old divorcee, Margo, falling in love with her controlling friend's ex-husband. This book is only bearable because of the excellent character portrayals, so I'd like to further summarize the book through character snapshots.
The women
Margo: A 40 year old divorcee with 2 teenage children named Michelle and Stuart. She has a long list of lovers and flings and isn't ashamed of that. She isn't exactly glamorous, just... easy going. I don't think the author here was trying to make a loose-moraled person, but I did not like how she felt about her children. Its as if she had a little timer on both of them, counting down until the age 18 when she would finally get her freedom. I don't blame her for the events in the book because I was as charmed by Andrew as she was.
B.B/Francine: A thin, gorgeous, glamorous woman who is on the uptight side. Her daughter is Sara and her ex-husband is Andrew. Although most people would call her a maniac, I thought she was rather nuianced and believable while being out of the range of a normal personality. She absolutely could not stand her ex-husband coming to town. My word, he may want to see their child! Needless to say, she broke down and completely shirked her responsibilities by taking a long lavish visit to the psychiatric ward in a far away land. I know a snarky comment like that is probably the reasoning that caused her to break down, but there IS a middle ground between being too uptight and not giving a damn at all. Being able to go on a 6 month long picnic without even the responsibility of smiling at someone? Well, that is something we'd all like but goodness, we have to keep up appearances.
Michelle: The rude and loudmouthed 17 year old daughter of Margo. She seems kind of messed up because of the divorce, but honestly, she had some good points. She only seems uptight and particular because her mother might not in fact be giving her enough structure. I mean, I'd be pissed if my easy mother let her 3 month boyfriend move in with his 12 year old daughter. And after moving across country to get away from my dad? It doesn't seem like she thought about me at all. Michelle had a nice story arc where Eric, Margo's 21 year old ex-lover, comes to town to crash on the couch. Michelle is wooed by his youth and motorcycle and carelessly loses her virginity to him. Of course, this book begin what it is, Eric takes off at the drop of a hat, leaving Michelle in shambles. Michelle let her self go on this escapade because she wanted "experience". It sounded like she wanted experience being hurt. Reading this book is like an experience in being hurt.
Sara: The 12 year old daughter of B.B./Francine. Some reviews call her the most sympathetic character but I call her the least controversial. She was just a young child of divorce that wanted to make everyone happy. Her mother was a little uptight and it made her a worrisome little girl.
Clare: This is a tertiary charactor if there ever was one. She is the connecting friend between Margo and B.B. It is how they met, and she is a better friend to either of them than they are to each other. Her character traits include being rich and having a daughter, Puffin. She doesn't get much play in the book, but we do see enough of her to get into her relationship drama. She decides to end her separation by taking back her indifferent cheating husband. Its really his indifference that bothered me. I mean, he easily could have loved her and wanted to get back together with her it wouldn't have affected the book at all.
Puffin: Clare's airhead daughter and girlfriend of Stuart. She is spoiled because her mom is rich. Midway through the book she has to get an abortion because Stuart doesn't want to have a baby. I thought the whole situation was pathetic myself. She could have kept the baby. I mean, she wanted the baby, she had the means to keep the baby, but she couldn't get Stuart to want the baby. She asked Michelle to convince Stuart to marry her so the baby would be legitimate. She didn't try very hard is what I'm saying. After that brief conversation, they got in the car and got an abortion. The whole thing was unsettling. They decided to end the pregnancy because no one wanted to make a decision.
The Men:
Andrew: He seemed like a charmer. I was charmed. He came to town so he could spend a year seeing his daughter, Sara, and perhaps had an ulterior motive of getting his wife to love him again. He didn't try terribly hard except for a forced kiss in the beginning, but B.B is impossible. He falls in love with Margo, perhaps because she lived next door, but also perhaps because she falls in love so easily. I understood by the portrayal of Margo why this crazy mixed up situation would happen, but you'd think Andrew would have second guessed the idea of merging two families that weren't all that committed to eachother. When the book ended I realized that of course he wouldn't second guessed it because this book is about how men don't take responsibility for their decisions and the women do.
Stuart: Daughter of Margo. He stook up for Margo a couple of times when Michelle tried to out her, but, because he is male, all of his positive qualities had to be flushed down the toilet when he made his girlfriend get an abortion without so much as a comforting word.
Eric: Young ex-lover of Margo. Character qualities are: 1) being horrible because he is male and 2) has a motorcycle. He could have been thrown in to show how careless men can be, but also perhaps to show how horrible a mother Margo is. Margo knew Eric would take Michelle's virginity and run, but she didn't even do so much as tell Michelle that she used to have sex with Eric. She didn't even stop them when she noticed them fooling around in her room. She decided to let Michelle make one of the biggest mistakes of her life because Margo didn't want to be bothered.
Lewis: Tertiary character that had perhaps one paragraph of dialogue through the whole book. He begged B.B./Francine to marry him because of how beautiful and in control she seemed. Ha. I suppose he was thrown in to illustrate that when men seem wonderful its because the are complete tools.
I don't think everyone should blame the women. Sure, its easy because the book was told through the eyes of women, but just because they took all the responsibility doesn't mean they should take in all the fault.
I've read other reviews saying that this book titled Smart Women sarcastically, about how the book is actually a case study in the stupid mistakes women make and how they justify them. If that is true, the act of searching for happiness is in itself a stupid mistake
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