Review: Positively delightful!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 21, 2014
Author CeCe Osgood contacted me, requesting an honest review of her book The Divorced Not Dead Workshop.  How could I say no?On the fifth anniversary of her divorce, Dorsey Bing suggests to her friends that there should be a way to 'desuckify' men.  She and her friends Pilar Vega (friends since their first day of Psych 101 in college) and Mimi (no surname listed) are shopping when she spies her most recent boyfriend, Theo, with a young, busty blonde.  And they're entering the shop they're in! Dorsey's step-father, Ralph, is dating Theo's great-aunt by marriage, Audrey.  Theo had dumped Dorsey, but she told Ralph and Audrey that the parting was amicable.After her friends pull her out from under the table she hid under and haul her to the bar for a few cocktails, Dorsey wakes up the next morning on Mimi's couch.  After she makes her way to work - late - she finds out that corporate HR is there, and they're there to downsize!  As the new kid on that block, Dorsey shortly finds herself heading to her car with a box of her belongings in hand.Dorsey rents a guesthouse on the estate of a mini-mansion currently undergoing renovation.  The place is hers until the renovation is complete and the estate goes on the market.  Now she's out of work, depressed about being single, and the renovation is nearly complete.  Pilar and Mimi arrive with food and drink in hand, and tell her they love Dorsey's latest brainstorm - a workshop for divorced men, designed to 'desuckify' them.  Having had great ideas in the past but zero follow-through, Pilar, an event planner by profession, takes up the gauntlet and runs with it.  She knows Dorsey's idea is a good one, and intends to make it work.  Since Dorsey doesn't have anything better to do, she gets to help.  It was her idea, after all.She meets Ralph for their standing lunch date, where he announces he is retiring and that he and Audrey intend to marry.  The wedding will take place in Mexico, and tickets have been purchased for the cruise ship, the Lyric, where Ralph is an entertainer, for her, Mimi and Pilar.  This will be Ralph's final cruise with the liner.  When Pilar, 'Miss Epitome of Organization', messes up and books the workshop on the same weekend as the cruise, they decide to move the workshop to be held on the cruise. But, there is a catch.  Pilar has been trying to court a leading board member for a number of very high profile non-profits.  In attempt to garner her favor, Pilar accepts the Zelda Hogan's request for her daughters to attend the workshop.  So much for a workshop for men.Nothing can go wrong... right?I have to admit, it took me a few chapters to really 'get into' the book.  In particular, I needed to re-read the first 2-3 pages before I figured out what was going on and who was who. Once I figured out whom Dorsey, Mimi and Pilar were, I was good to go. When I got to around 40-45%, I could not put it down!  In fact, I was up past 4AM reading.I found the humor light and refreshing with an occasional guffaw, and some of the more tense situations had me wanting to bite my fingernails.  It's not slapstick funny; the humor did not feel forced by the author. I found it cute, something many of my divorcee friends could relate to, and fascinating on a psychological level (some of the workshop items).  The only real annoyance I had was that it took so long to find out why Dorsey had such a problem with a woman named Melissa Street.  It's not until late in the book when we find out whom she is/was.