I liked the premise and the first 10 pages. Then it lost me in the minutiae of academic politics and brushed aside all the interesting bits of the love story with a few off hand remarks. Not impressed. Unlikely to read more by this author.

If you enjoy a book about books for which a quote like this is the least bit appealing then this book might be for you.

"I love the escape. Academics aren't supposed to say that, but it's true. I love to dive into somebody else's vision, nightmare, utopia, whatever. I love how books put a dent in our egos..."

True, this books is chic lit which will put some people off from the start, but if given a chance it captivates with countless ideas that keep making me stop reading to think philosophically deep thoughts. Sounds corny, but ask yourself how life is like a crowd of people doing the wave.
The story in its simplest explanation is the persuit of happiness. Happiness being what everyone wants, but which typically isn't a recurring theme in literature. In the real world bad things happen, but don't define who they are. The main character is a independent woman who believes that happily ever after doesn't necessarily need to end in "I do".
I was a little unimpressed with the way the author threw around all the big words. I know even college English professors don't talk that way, and it ended up making the story seem pretentious.In the end it was an enjoyable read.

The only thing worse than chick lit is pretentious chick lit. This book was so awful - it was actually recommended to me and apparently I will need to be more selective about what suggestions I honor. I agree with the premise, that that dumb line about happy families being all alike is not true and the implication that there is nothing interesting about happiness, while being something I myself have often said, is certainly simplistic - however, to create an entire novel about that is in itself a pretty bland idea, or at least it became bland. First of all, if you're trying to get me to root for a heroine, maybe make her an actual human being rather than this annoying academic who goes on for pages and pages in a rather boring and narcisistic fashion about her musings of various literary works (maybe I don't know that many hard core academics, but I'm sure SOME of them manage a conversation without dropping lines from Dickenson, or rather, Emily) or it documents the ever so clever and snappy (read: trite and contrived) dialogue of her stupid dates with her equally one dimensional, plot device rather than a character boyfriend, like I care, who proceeds to be an absolute freak for the purposes of building drama but then because it all has to turn out all right in the end (this is a book about happiness not being trite, after all - and oh, sorry if I spoiled the ending) he ends up being good again - not likeable, mind you, because none of these characters have actual dimension and are all a bunch of cardboard pieces.
This book was bad from the start and did nothing to redeem itself.

This started out so promising. I highlighted passage after passage that was insightful or written beautifully. But the story ultimately didn’t hold together as well as I hoped. The writing is top-notch though.