Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman
3.5/5
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About this ebook
A hilarious collection of stories from the life of the New York Times bestselling author of Look Again.
With her trademark wit and wisdom, Lisa Scottoline pushes past the 700-word limit of her columns, bringing out the laughter from everyday situations and sharing a treasure trove of insights along the way.
This collection celebrates a kaleidoscope of seventy vignettes that illuminates the humorous side of life's highs, lows, and everything in between: a braless dash to the ER, life lessons for girls from Betty and Veronica, intriguing theories on men's most important body part and the rising antagonism against Spanx–all in one hilarious collection.
Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty novels including Look Again, Lady Killer, Think Twice, Save Me and Everywhere That Mary Went. She also writes a weekly column, “Chick Wit,” with her daughter Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer. The columns have been collected in several volumes, including Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space. Scottoline has won an Edgar® Award and Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Fun Fearless Fiction” Award, and she served as the president of Mystery Writers of America. She teaches a course on justice and fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater. She lives in the Philadelphia area.
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Reviews for Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog
179 ratings27 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was amusing. I enjoyed it more and more as I kept reading. It is a series of columns that have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They probably are best read one at a time, rather than straight through.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lisa Scottoline makes me laugh. And cry. And, say to Jim, "You have to hear this." I don't have a drop of Italian blood, so we're not related, but, after reading her book, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, I know we're connected, if only by sisterhood.When Scottoline starting writing a weekly column called "Chick Wit" for The Philadelphia Inquirer, she wrote it for women I know. She wanted to talk to the kind of women she saw in real life, strong, funny, and feisty; women like her mom, her girlfriends, her daughter, and herself. Her book is dedicated to "Extraordinary ordinary women everywhere." And, she knew we would understand. She knew the strength of women, as Eleanor Roosevelt did. The opening quote in the book is from Roosevelt, a favorite quote of Scottoline's. "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water."Most women will find themselves somewhere in these pages. Scottoline can laugh at herself and her family, and she does it with so much love, that we're willing to laugh at ourselves with her. I discovered that we love the same movie candy in her essay, "Movie Time." And, since my father died a number of years ago, I cried over her column, "I Miss My Father." (I do, too.) Since, I have two kittens, I appreciated her story about her little terror. Any animal lover will appreciate her stories about her dogs. And, I had to laugh when she talked about going for her author photo, saying, "The best fiction in my books is my author photo." If you've only known Lisa Scottoline from her novels, now you can learn about her life, her family, and her pets. Scottoline is eccentric, passionate about her daughter, concerned about aging and that little extra weight. She's had her rough years, and celebrates her love for her mother and brother. She's proud of her daughter, Francesca, and allows her to share her voice in the book. In other words, Lisa Scottoline is such an excellent columnist that her words hit home where it counts, in the heart. If you want thoughts that are sometimes funny, and always warm, check out Lisa Scottoline's collection of columns, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I picked this up on the strength of the title. I'll give any book that makes me laugh out loud in the library a shot. I should have read the flap copy, because this is almost the perfect storm of nonfiction I hate- let me count the ways.
The author writes (1)"chick-lit" that is (2)massively popular. This (3)collection of (4)newspaper columns features several (5)guest columns written by the author's daughter. The essays are (6)cute, (7)upbeat, and (8)warmly nonjudgmental. They feature (9)Spanx, (10)old dogs, the (11)hilarious indignities of being a middle-aged (12)suburban American (13)consumer. The coup de grace is the author's (14)awesome relationship with her (15)perfect mother. I think every bit of the writing herein is genuine, and I suspect I'm in the curmudgeonly minority at whom it is not aimed. I think that Scottoline is probably a lovely person in real life. I think she'd be the kind of friend she writes about- the kind who would always have your back, would always cheer you on, and would bring you casseroles when your mom died and bottles of wine when your husband left.
But I hated this book. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lisa Scottoline is a twice divorced single mother living with a menagerie of animals...dogs, cats, & chickens. She talks honestly & openly about her life and family...she is strong, intelligent, and willful...a great role-model for women.
Some parts were extremely funny, some were not. Some were clever, some were boring. I did not like the writings of her daughter..... I would have liked more.....too many of these essays (not stories) were too short.
I have never read her novels and although I do purchase them for the Library I have no intention of doing so, but I would like to read more of her essays. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Since I had never read Lisa Scottoline's newspaper column, "Chick Wit", this was all new to me and I really enjoyed it. It was funny and warm and intelligent and made me feel that Lisa was someone I would want to be friends with.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Narrated by the author. Scottoline reads her essays on life as a middle-aged woman with down-to-earth humor. You can imagine kicking back with her during a girls' night, sipping wine and laughing over crazy stories. It's like Erma Bombeck but with much more contemporary sensibilities and an occasional racy edge. A great listen for a long road trip or work commute.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My book club chose this book and it was a definite winner! Lisa has a wonderful way of sharing ordinary daily events and making them very humorous. We all had so many pages marked that we wanted to comment on. Loved this book and recommend it to any woman over 40!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great book to tote along in the car when you have a few moments to spare for reading! Mystery writer Scottoline has collected many of her columns from a Philadelphia newspaper and provided us with a glimpse of her life. From housing four dogs, watching your child grow up and away, and her aging mother, Scottoline taps into much of what many women think, but don't always talk about. She has provided us with another collection this December, I will definitely check it out!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Funny, silly read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5funny, funny, funny - great to have around for a quick fix of humor when reading too many angst-filled books!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a great book of essays about what it's like to be an ordinary woman living in the world today (originally published as columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer). I laughed out loud so many times. I also had several moments when I thought to myself, "Wait, someone else feels the same way that I do about X"? (especially about Dead Whoppers in my movie candy, or about how the reason women interrupt each other all the time is because we're so excited about what the other person is saying, we just can't hold it in...) I can't wait to re-read this one and will also pass it on to all my friends. Give it a try - I don't think you will be sorry. (Scottoline also writes great thrillers -- about a year ago my friend Phyllis recommended "Look Again" to me and since then I've been a big fan.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I listened to Lisa Scottoline read these collected essays, and I have to say I cannot wait to meet her in October.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A collection of essays by Lisa Scottoline, including a few by her daughter, reflecting on the various oddities, mishaps and happiness of her day-to-day life.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very funny and relates well to everyday life. Lisa's column is always funny and it hits home
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Such a cute title and cover for such a dreadfully boring book. The book is a bunch of essays and I only remember finding one or two even mildly interesting. Don't waste your time. The cover and title are the only redeeming things about the book and you can see them without opening the cover. It's a quick read, but there are many better ways to spend an hour or two.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Essays about life with her mother, daughter, and brother Frank. Some bitterness about failed marriages but couched with humor. Dog and chicken stories. Overall, amusing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book has been very entertaining, but a bit all over the place, until I realized or read somewhere (it may be in the prologue) that each chapter is actually from the author's weekly newspaper column. That makes more sense. Lisa Scottoline writes a column in a Philidelphia newspaper.
Each chapter has a bit of humor (some funnier than others), but they all have a message. It is not the 'shove it down your throat' type message that you get with some articles or books. It is very subtle, sweet and just makes me smile and feel good about myself.
Lisa is a single mom that enjoys writing and talks about how fortunate she is to have been able to earn a living off of her writing. I like the gratitude part, very much. I think that we sometimes forget to be grateful in this day and age. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mostly culled from Scottoline's Chick Wit column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, these brief essays are collected under the subtitle of The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman. And they are indeed ordinary adventures as most women readers will recognize the situations that Scottoline has written about, having experienced them themselves at some point. She uses her family and her own life as the basis for these very short (they were published in a newspaper after all) life pieces. While they provided some entertainment during the reading, they have been, unfortunately, very forgettable since then. And while I'm certain that I must have chuckled at least once, I cannot for the life of me pin it down and be certain of that. These are probably best for a "woman of a certain age" combined with those sitautions where you want to have a book in hand but must be capable of putting it down at a moment's notice. In other words, this would be perfect while standing in line at the DMV (which, come to think of it, she doesn't write about despite it being a place rife with comedic potential). Obviously not my favorite read of the month but others have found it hysterically funny so perhaps we just don't share the same sense of humor.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good audio to listen to in the car.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5absolutely histerical! Lisa should be a stand up comic. I feel like I know and am a part of her family.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5a really funny collection of stories from the real world of Lisa Scottoline, best-selling author and columnist. Her stories mostly poke fun at her life (being braless in the ER, babying her chickens, putting her Corgi on doggie prozac). She adds a depth to them making the reader feel completely empathetic (I don't have chickens but if I did, I would watch over them like a mother hen too, and so forth). Of course, her collection of dogs - I tend to gravitate towards dog people.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really love Scottoline's writing, and her audiobooks are extra fun. I get to hear her (and her daughter Francesca) reading antics from their lives...though they occasionally make me snort and almost cry as I'm grocery shopping...the thing with Little Tony, the cone, and the cold cream face made me nearly have to clutch an end cap at the store. My inability to control myself aside, this was such a nice pick-me-up.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lisa Scottoline is best known for her thrillers, usually featuring strong women thrown into perilous situations. It's a delightful surprise to discover she also writes short essays, some previously published in her "Chick Wit" column.The topics are mostly humorous, dealing with being a woman; being the single mom of a young adult; being the adult child of an opinionated and feisty mother; finding jeans that fit; and other perils of contemporary life.While the title statement is never really discussed, we do discover that Scottoline has two ex-husbands "in the rear-view mirror", and shares her Pennsylvania home with dogs, cats, chickens, and an occasional relative.It's an engaging collection to dip into, rather like sitting down for coffee with a friend for a good girl-talk session.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You know what’s rare on a flight bound OUT of Las Vegas? Laughter. But my return flight from Sin City had me apologizing to my seat mate as my only partially stifled laughter kept shaking the seat.Lisa Scottoline’s book of essays, “Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog” was a great book to make the return home go quickly. When I was little, I remember reading Erma Bombeck’s “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?” and this book has a very similar type humor. Both women take a sometimes exasperated, usually sarcastic view of the ups and downs of living in the modern world, but there is always an underlying love and appreciation for the people in their lives. They may be frustrated at times with the people that make them crazy, but they love them fiercely. And, to even things out, much of the humor is self-deprecating, which is one of my favorite kinds.I won’t try and include all of the good lines, but here are a few that give the sense of the book.When she is talking about some of the life lessons she gleaned from her mother, “If you load the knives into the dishwasher pointy tip up, you’ll fall on them and impale yourself. Also you’ll go blind from reading without enough light. Reading in general ruins your eyes. If you eat baked beans from a can that has dents, you’’ die of botulism. This was before people injected botulism into their faces. Nowadays, the dented can will kill you, but you’ll look young.”And, “Anyway, my head was full of these thoughts the other afternoon, as I was hurrying in a downpour through the streets of New York City, there to take my author photo. I know that sounds glamorous and it would be if I were ten pounds lighter and ten years younger, but take it from me, the best fiction in my books is the author photo.”And, “On the road, I pass lots of other carbodies, all of us doing the same thing. Moms in packed minivans, sales reps with full closets in the back seat, lawyers writing on pads on the dashboard. They talk on the phone or text like crazy. Once I saw someone smoking a cigarette, opening a pack of Trident, and driving at 70mph. It was like watching someone juggle an axe, a gun, and a bazooka.”She also has a few pearls of wisdom that speak right to the heart. “You have to be crazy to stop eating bacon. Bacon is the meth of meats.”Scottoline also speaks to what is being lost in today’s world – memories that her generation have but that won’t be part of this new “Everyone has the same ‘must have’ things” world.“I remember perfectly our family suitcase, which we used growing up. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’d bet money that you can remember the suitcase your family had when you were little. Our family suitcase was a rigid rectangle covered with royal blue vinyl, and it had white plastic piping. Inside it were all manner of fake silk pouches with generous elastic gathering. It was so heavy only my father could carry it. And we all four used it, so either we didn’t have much stuff or it was the size of Vermont. The suitcase fascinated me, and I always imagined that someday it would be plastered with stickers in the shape of pennants, each with the name of an exotic city…Now nobody will grow up fascinated with their family suitcase, because everybody will remember the exact same one. A soft black box like the one I bought at Brookstone. No decals. No tangy whiff of faraway places.”Though I think I laughed more at the beginning of the book, before settling into the rhythm of the words and her style of humor, I very much enjoyed Lisa Scottoline’s take on her life…one very similar to mine.And? My laughter on that plane leaving Vegas put me in a far better mood than most of the other passengers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For many, especially we fans of crime and mystery novels, the name Lisa Scottoline will no doubt be familiar. The author of over a dozen best selling, award winning legal thrillers, always set in the Philadelphia area and populated by such great characters as Mary DiNunzio and Bennie Rosato, Ms. Scottoline has another writing outlet that you may be familiar with. For years she has been the author of a weekly column in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, a column called Chick Wit. And happily, 70 of those columns have now been collected in this book "Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog", a title which both explains how fond she is of her menagerie of dogs, large and small (not to mention the cats and the pony..oh, and the chickens) and now unfond she is of her two ex-husbands. Or as she refers to them, Thing One and Thing Two. Ms. Scottoline's essays are often very funny, at times quite touching but always, always very relatable. She and I share the love of many things, including bacon, "the meth of meat", Tom Colicchio and large, furry doggies. And books, oh yes, books..."UnResolution Number Seven. I buy too many books. I love to read and have hundreds of books overflowing my bookshelves and stacked high on my dining room table, in piles. I love living around books, and reading is like traveling without baggage claim. Who needs a dining room anyway? So maybe now you understand why I am single." Which may not always be a bad thing.. "...all I am saying is that fact you live alone doesn't necessarily mean you're lonely. It means you're free to wear hats to bed." Especially timely in this holiday season is her view on shopping. "In the beginning, God created the Internet and shopping online. I was an early believer. Where shopping is involved, I get in on the ground floor, especially if I don't have to move from my chair. Shopping online was like having somebody bring you brownies and stuff them in your mouth. in other words, impossible to resist."You will meet the 'characters' that populate her real life, Mother "Earthquake" Mary, Brother Frank, Daughter Francesca, and BFF's Franca and Laura, all tied into, one way or another, some very amusing stories. Her mother, all 4'11" of her, resides most of the year in South Florida with Lisa's gay brother, and is what I would call a pistol. When she shows up in a column, you know you will be laughing shortly. To mention just a few of the life lessons she got from her mother, "If you load the knives into the dishwasher pointy tip up, you’ll fall on them and impale yourself. Also you’ll go blind from reading without enough light. Reading in general ruins your eyes. If you eat baked beans from a can that has dents, you die of botulism. This was before people injected botulism into their faces. Nowadays, the dented can will kill you, but you’ll look young." At times it is clear that her family may drive her crazy but it is also just as clear that she loves them fiercely. While they are often the source of a funny story, the person most commonly at the center of the joke is she herself. Witty, a unique view of the world around her, not afraid to be the butt of her own jokes, all wrapped up with a wee dash of sarcasm, makes for a funny, entertaining collection. Get a copy for yourself and, especially if they are a fan of her fiction, a copy as a gift for friends or relatives. If you are feeling stressed, just whip out this book, read one or two of the 70 essays and I can assure you you will be feeling a little better and will most likely have a smile on your face. If not ROTFL.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My daughter got me this book, once again proving her talent for finding the perfect gift. As soon as I saw the pets in the author's photo on the back cover, and learned that Scottoline's a NYT bestselling and Edgar award-winning author who also writes a column called "Chick Wit" with her daughter, I was hooked. Her descriptions of golden retriever personalities were spot-on hilarious. Clever puns keep you smiling throughout relatable tales of being a female at every age, the dynamics with her daughter, exes and her aging mother, her memories of being raised in an Italian-American family... secrets and guilt women don't usually admit to out loud. I recommend this to my sis-in-law, friends Virginia and Julie because of the chapters about raising chickens, and to anyone else who needs a laugh. Released in 2009, a few passages are a bit dated, but still funny because the topics are timeless.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Light and entertaining memoir read by Lisa Scottoline (pronounced "lini" at the end) herself. While I've read some of her fiction, this is eye-opening, as I really didn't picture her as a Jersey "dago" -- her word, but it's there in her accent all right. She recounts numerous humorous events involving her 3 dogs, her intrepid mother, her gay brother and her aspiring writer daughter who puts in some verbal guest appearances reading her own perspective on some of the incidents. Scottoline has heart and it comes through in the events she chooses to share as well as her feelings about them.
Book preview
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog - Lisa Scottoline
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