Bittergirl: Getting Over Getting Dumped

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

Imagine this: you’re fast approaching 30/40/50, and you’re still
officially single. You have a boyfriend/partner/significant other, who,
in your eyes, is Mr. Wonderful. The two of you talk about buying a home
together to raise your kids in, summer vacations at his family cottage
by the lake, and growing old together. And tonight, you have a date at
the nicest restaurant in town. You just know he’s going to propose.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he announces that he feels compelled to join
Doctors Without Borders/devote himself full-time to his art/marry his
kids’ babysitter, and leave you behind. You’ve been dumped. And
badly.

So have the authors of Bittergirl. Fifty-seven times between all three,
to be exact. “Does that make us losers?,” they ask. “No. It makes
us qualified to write this book.”

Bittergirl is for any adult woman who finds herself newly single and
needs adult coping strategies to move on with her life. Unlike other
books of the genre, Bittergirl does not assume that there is anything
wrong with the reader. The book does not focus on winning back
ex-boyfriends, resolving childhood issues, or seeking out different
types of men. Instead, it talks about the loss of self-esteem, and gives
the reader a concrete plan for rebuilding her own sense of worth.
Bittergirl encourages the recently dumped to develop a support team to
help her through the healing process, contracts to help her avoid
dangerous common behaviours (such as calling the ex and frequenting old
haunts), and a multitude of healthy ways to fill the emotional void.
Despite the title, Bittergirl is anything but bitter.

There is not a single piece of bad advice in this book. In fact, its
common-sense, no-nonsense approach is right on target.