The Divorce Part by Laura Dave is one of the best books I have read in awhile. You know a book is good when it only takes me 3 days to read it!

The whole book takes place in one day. Maggie is about to meet her future in-laws at their Divorce Party. Yes, Divorce Party. The couple, Gwyn and Thomas, is throwing in the towel after nearly 35 years of marriage. Thomas has found religion (or at least that is his version of him growing apart from his wife) and doesn’t see Gwyn as part of his journey into Buddhism. Gwyn decides the throw a Divorce Party to celebrate the end of the relationship and the beginning of their new futures.

Then we have Maggie and Nate, Gwyn and Thomas’ son. Newly engaged, about to start a restaurant business of their own, and head over heels for each other. Maggie has been a commitment phobe her whole life mostly because of the traumatic experience of her mother walking out on her when she was younger. Maggie hangs in there through each revealed secret until Nate’s sister Georgia spills the biggest secret of Nate’s past. I didn’t blame Maggie for second guessing her entire relationship and future with Nate at that point. I don’t want to give any spoilers because I want you to go devour the book like I did but you will discover just how clever Gwyn is as her story unravels to the very end.

The story is told by alternating back and forth between Maggie and Gwyn. I love the way Laura Dave writes. Page after page the back story of these two women are told as secrets are revealed about each man and how Maggie and Gwyn are seeing their lives unfold before them. Dave is a very gifted story teller. She keeps you hanging at the end of every chapter. You do have to read chapter in succession because they build upon each other. Dave makes you feel as if you are right there at the side of each character watching the story unfold. It is the way these 2 women analyze their lives(past, present and future) that makes the reader get sucked in.

I highly recommend this book for a lazy weekend when you can shut off the phone, grab a cup of coffee and relax with a good story!

Laura Dave is the author of London is the Best City in America, which was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, Self Magazine, ESPN the Magazine, Redbook, and The New York Observer. She lives in New York City; visit her online at lauradave.com. The rights to the story to be made into a movie were bought by Jennifer Aniston’s production company!!!!