I felt he wrote from the perspective of and with the intense emotion of a woman. I would have only expected that he was writing from personal experience, if I hadn't known better and knew of the author.

I first learned of this book because it was featured on "Oprah's Book Club". I was not an avid reader at the time and was nervous to start with a novel, but I was hooked from the first chapter and didn't want to put it down.

This is the story of a young girl named Dolores in search of happiness. The relationship between her parents is terrible, she was raped, she is extremely overweight, she has no boyfriend and later on in the story she desperately wants a baby. All these things make her very unhappy and severely depressed. If only she could change a few things, she felt she'd be happy. This book tells of her quest for true happiness, as you follow her life from age 4 to 40.

When it happens that she's no longer overweight and has the boyfriend she always wanted, she finds that she still has no happiness. As the book proceeds, she discovers that the happiness she was searching for all along, was there  the whole time- she just had to know where to look.

Although this book is sometimes sad, there are moments of true comedy to break it up. I couldn't help but be pleased to be reading about someone who seemed so "real". I was sick of reading about the beautiful or the affluent women I could never imagine meeting. How refreshing to meet a character who is human, with all the shortcomings of anyone walking down the street. You truly feel for Dolores and want her to be happy, as you learn about and question your own quest for happiness. Being someone who is living with an illness, I can sympathize with the quest for happiness. I would recommend this book to anyone- man or woman!

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