Find your soulmate, and be swept off your feet with promises of forever. Buy your dream house to start a family…and the works. It sounds more like a threat than a suggestion, doesn’t it? A love-fuelled, ritualistic spell that works effectively in bringing freakishly high standards of what romance should be while forgetting the likelihood of it morphing into unknown, yet more realistic, experiences. Marilyn Simon Rothstein’s Crazy to Leave You heralds Lauren Leo, a forty-one year old woman left at the altar, as an example of getting back on your feet and managing damaging expectations of love by navigating your own desires. 

We’re placed smack-dab in the centre of Lauren’s wedding, everything falling into place—her best girlfriends, gag gifts, her family, even wearing the wedding gown of her dreams. It couldn’t be any more perfect. Lo and behold, her would-be husband, Eric Farkas, texts Lauren’s sister, Stephanie, saying he’s “too young (emotionally) to get married,” setting off an escapade of sorts where Lauren finds herself taking a break from love until the stars align in hand-wavy romance novel logic. After a car accident, Lauren ends up falling for her company driver, Rudy Cohen. In addition to her budding relationship, Lauren goes through a journey of self-discovery and learns that not everything goes according to plan and that’s perfectly fine!

Lauren’s an annoying character. She’s whiny, obsessive and self-absorbed to the point of assuming that being left at the altar, which she dubs the Great Humiliation, is peak disaster for any woman in her forties. This humiliation results in Lauren vowing to never love again and deeming all men untrustworthy. Crazy to Leave You is set in first-person, so you get to experience firsthand her thoughts revolving around her supposedly dwindling desirability with occasional one-liners that’d get a surprise chuckle. I usually don’t read first-person because of the risk of an unrelatable protagonist, and Lauren is a prime example of an out-of-body, nothing-in-common character whose inner monologue I had to trudge through, littered with unhealthy and obsessive thoughts of an ideal partner and kids. Imagine the nuclear family with a bit of a white feminist twist; it’s vexing, and only near the end when she gains a hint of a backbone do I find Lauren tolerable.

Even when Lauren does tackle the problems she faces, it’s triggered by witnessing her friends and sisters deal with their own problems—sketchy Ponzi schemes for gambling addictions, divorces, cheating spouses, you name it. It’s only through their misery that she finally acknowledges that the world doesn’t revolve around a hiccup at her no-show wedding and that she can bounce back. Other than that, Lauren embodies woe-is-me like a second skin. She’s forty-one, I feel like she could’ve taken a bit more initiative earlier in the book rather than later.

You might not expect it, but the novel heavily focuses on eating disorders, fatphobia and internalized body dissatisfaction. It becomes a glaring topic of discussion when we’re introduced to Lauren’s mother who is overbearing, rude and imposes her ideals of traditional relationships onto her children. To her, men only want skinny women, and reminding Lauren of her diet and judging her for having second helpings of anything, is just the tip of the iceberg. You’re stuck reading harsh and overly critical comments from a woman who wants what’s “best” for her daughters. There’s nothing done about it for the majority of the novel either! Lauren’s relationship with food is an important factor for her journey in self-discovery but the novel seems to focus only on that as its plot, dragging it out where everything else is pushed to the background or only to add onto the “weight problem.” The satisfaction of Lauren overcoming her own battles with self-acceptance doesn’t last long. The novel’s romantic ending quickly couples her with Rudy and everything’s right in the world again. It’s like two different themes are competing with each other and to ensure no loose ends, two seemingly unrelated plots are quickly tied up together.

However, by spending a lot of time addressing Lauren’s eating disorder, Rothstein also strategically highlights the Leo familial bond and relationship. She realistically shows the tension between parents and children, and even between sisters, while still bringing said sisters closer than ever once they’re able to see past the images they’ve projected onto each other. Rothstein subverts the perfect family cliche that’s expected in most romance novels. Different ideas and butting heads make the familial relationships more authentic, and you can definitely see the impact that Lauren’s time around her family has on her mindset. The boiling point that needed to happen for Lauren and her sisters to act their age—acknowledging their flaws and bad habits in an attempt to correct them, was definitely welcomed. Personally, Lauren’s oldest sister Margo was the most engaging character, especially during her interactions with Lauren. Don’t get me wrong, she has her own struggles with type-2 diabetes, struggling to find work as an actor and dealing with the animosity between herself and their mother, but it’s Margo’s abrupt crashing at Lauren’s home that instigates Lauren’s redemption arc. She doesn’t baby Lauren’s antics whatsoever and instead comforts her by urging her to do something for herself, even if she’s hesitant to take her own advice. It’s refreshing to see eccentric characters like Margo in a story that focuses heavily on traditional stereotypes.

Romance novels, in a weird way, often romanticize the idea of  settling with Mr. Right in order to get the kids and cushy lifestyle. Reading the same scenario repeatedly becomes real dull, real quick. Crazy to Leave You falls prey to this self-romanticization but its redeeming quality is the support system that Lauren finds in her family, who help her step back from that nonsense to focus on her own growth, even briefly. Valentine’s Day is not solely for couples, it’s also a time of taking stock of the love you have for those dear to your heart. Sometimes it’s your siblings or best friend that won’t take your shit and tell you when you’re being ridiculous. Other times, it’s urging yourself that the person you should focus on and treat with respect is none other than yourself. Love comes in many forms, and while the romantic aspects of Crazy to Leave You might be underwhelming, the love between siblings more than makes up for it.