Appearance
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
Berg has never let me down before, but this book did. Nicely written, but plot was too pat, altogether too predictable. Neither Patty nor her friends and family seemed real to me. I can certainly empathize with Patty, being childless myself, but this novel was much too simplistic. Berg can usually nail a feeling or sentiment exactly, what happened this time?
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
I have been a great Elizabeth Berg fan for a long time. Her novels have the ability to reduce me to tears with their wisdom, and I look with much eagerness for each new one. But this one was a terrible disappointment. How many times has this story been done already? Dozens. A 36 year old single woman, whose biological clock is running, wise cracks her way through bad dates and life while wasting her time being in love with a gorgeous gay man. The first three pages contained the beautifully wise writing of a Berg novel, but it was downhill from there. This novel made me wonder if Berg wrote it solely for a quick dollar.
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
A stellar follow up to the mediocre "What we Keep"! How many of us out there can relate to Patty's predicament--the perpetual runner-up to life? Elizabeth Berg speaks so well what many of us have experienced, her books are always a joy to read!
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
I LOVE E. Berg, however, in this novel I thought the story was a little dragged a little and the ending was rushed. it was as if she realized this story needs to end. though Funny at times I just wished all the action didn't happen at the few last chapters.
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
_Until the Real Thing Comes Along_ is a very fascinating book. The subject matter is one that I think many single women in the earlier thirties or even later has "entertained" at one time or another. I know that the subject matter really piqued my interested, as it relates to things that I had hoped to have one day - a family and a husband. At like the title implies, the main character felt that she had to compensate somehow until, you know, "the real thing did come along."The main character, Patty, desperately wants a baby. However, she doesn't have a husband and the biological clock is ticking. She is a great character, and I loved reading about her as she developed throughout the novel. She was humorous, she had feelings, and she had problems with her family, her friends, her work, and her love life of course. She has this best friend, Ethan, who happens to be a gay man. He seemed pretty secure to me in the fact he was gay. Knowing many gay men, who too also seemed to be secure in their homosexuality, it seemed peculiar to me that Ethan went along with Patty's plan. Perhaps there are more gay men out there like Ethan that I am completely unaware of. I think this was my major hang-up with the book, which prevented me from completely enjoying it altogether.On the whole, for an enjoyable read, and as something you will get through in the matter of a few days, I found this book to be quite satisfying and also interesting and fun too. To be entertained by a book, and to be satisfied is all that I ask, and this book accomplished both tasks. For it to draw out emotions in me, or to make me "think" about life, I would have to say it failed. But it was still not a waste by any means.
Until the Real Thing Comes Along:
Patty is in love with a gay man and wants a child -- dilemmas one might not be able to relate to, but such is Elizabeth Berg's magic that she draws readers into this particular story as strongly as if it were reality. She makes the difficult and complex choices of Patty and the object of her affection, Ethan, seem natural -- the initial decision to conceive a baby, then a move to Minneapolis where Ethan feels he might better simulate heterosexuality, Patty's everyday irritation with the tumults of pregnancy, and finally, welcoming a child against the backdrop of Patty's mother's recent diagnosis of Alzheimer's. One life is ushered in as another is slowly but surely escorted out; the smooth ebb and flow of being continues, and Berg, as always, renders every moment lyric and wonderful.