Dan Mayrock loves his wife, Jill, but he's ashamed to admit the bookshop he opened after he quit teaching is failing. It's bad enough he regrets the decision every day. Even worse, he fears he is not as good to Jill as her deceased first husband, who "took away all of Jill's worries about money." Then Jill becomes pregnant, pushing Dan to consider both ridiculous (asking billionaires for money) and radical (robbing bingo halls) solutions to their pending financial disaster. Because if he tells the truth, Dan fears Jill will leave him, just like his father left 15 years ago. And Dan's tired of fear.
Dan's attempts "to be someone... to do something" transpire entirely through his "obsessive and possibly crazy" lists--a brilliant tactic for portraying an insecure man who best expresses through writing his on-point axioms ("A birthday party without a cake is just a meeting"), pontifications on the mundane ("Is it better to eat a 250-calorie Twix or a 345-calorie avocado?") and devastating self-reflections ("3 reasons why I am a terrible man"). Characters burrow straight to readers' hearts, like Dan's bingo partner Bill, a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran whose wife was murdered yet still he "smiles at foam hearts in lattes."
As Dan aims to take care of Jill, he shows why doing anything to keep her love--including tolerating her use of hampers for storage--is vital. Twenty-One Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks (Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend) demonstrates how love can inspire bravery and self-sacrifice--how it can reveal us at our worst and at our best. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer