Matchmaking for Beginners

by Maddie Dawson

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Hardcover: 370 pages

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (June 1, 2018)

Marnie MacGraw wants an ordinary life—a husband, kids, and a minivan in the suburbs. Now that she’s marrying the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. Then Marnie meets Blix Holliday, her fiancé’s irascible matchmaking great-aunt who’s dying, and everything changes—just as Blix told her it would.

When her marriage ends after two miserable weeks, Marnie is understandably shocked. She’s even more astonished to find that she’s inherited Blix’s Brooklyn brownstone along with all of Blix’s unfinished “projects”: the heartbroken, oddball friends and neighbors running from happiness. Marnie doesn’t believe she’s anything special, but Blix somehow knew she was the perfect person to follow in her matchmaker footsteps.

And Blix was also right about some things Marnie must learn the hard way: love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Pay no attention to Wendy… She missed the class on manners because she was attending two extra courses on personal intimidation.

The life force is running out of this room! I’ve been at funerals that had better vibrations than this.

We never got married because I’ve finally learned that if you have to bring the law into your personal relationships, then you’re doing it wrong.

One time he said to me, “You know, I had a great six-pack when I was young,” and I said to him, “Bragging about beer is so unbecoming for an old man.”

It’s like he’s a person who has his emotions in a safety deposit box somewhere, and he forgot where he put it.

My Review:

Matchmaking for Beginners was the second superbly written book of Maddie Dawson’s that I have had the pleasure of reading. It produced a near-constant smirk and frequent subvocal chuckling. I have a strong compulsion to stop everything and simply indulge in all the various publications of this woman’s clever and creative work as I reveled in her word skills. I adored her highly amusing, clever, and keenly crafted storylines from start to finish. Her quirky characters were each uniquely, inexplicably, and magnetically intriguing, even the villains.

The main character of Marnie was an oddly unobservant bubblehead who was all too easily tilted off the rails and careening towards ruin. While I may have wanted to give her a few smacks to the head with my Kindle, I also found her extraordinarily endearing and held my breath for her on numerous occasions. Ms. Dawson’s humor was well-honed, shiny, and crisp. I particularly enjoyed the witty exchanges between Marnie and Patrick, the “luminous” misanthropic hermit living in the dank basement. Sigh, more, please!

About Maddie Dawson

Maddie Dawson grew up in the South, born into a family of outrageous storytellers. Her various careers as a substitute English teacher, department-store clerk, medical-records typist, waitress, cat sitter, wedding-invitation-company receptionist, nanny, daycare worker, electrocardiogram technician, and Taco Bell taco maker were made bearable by thinking up stories as she worked. Today she lives in Guilford, Connecticut, with her husband. She’s the bestselling author of five previous novels: The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness, The Opposite of Maybe, The Stuff That Never Happened, Kissing Games of the World, and A Piece of Normal.