Book Review: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog

Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman, Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s Press, 288 pages, 2009, $22) 

The first collection of entertaining essays inspired by the witty weekly columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Chick Wit,” penned by that golden retriever-loving legal mystery writer from Philly, Lisa Scottoline, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog will have you in stitches, saying to yourself, “Yeah, life’s like that!”

Yes, life is like that, but in the words of Scottoline, life makes one laugh in spite of it all. She is one of the few authors skilled in two very different genres: mystery and humor.

Followed by My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman (2010); Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: the Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter (2011 with daughter Francesca Serretella); and Meet Me At Emotional Baggage Claim (2012 with Francesca), Why My Third Husband is fun and funny, engaging, charming, down-to-earth, and just like your life but with Scottoline’s Mother Mary, Father Frank, Daughter Francesca, Brother Frank who still lives with Mother Mary at age 51 and loves being gay in Florida, and Assistant Laura, but mostly this book is about Lisa’s life of ups and downs that she manages to turn into smiles along the way.

A grand book to read in bed, one chapter at a time, Why My Third Husband shares Scottoline’s goldens, corgis, chickens, cats, and Cavaliers; renovations to her house, visits with daughter and mother, and references to her first husband, Thing One, and second husband, Thing Two.

If I counted correctly, 89 delightful stories and amazing adventures (a handful with contributions by Daughter Francesca while at Harvard) that could happen to you, ordinary woman, if you too had suffered through five years of rejection notices on the way to becoming a best-selling author of 17 novels!

But Scottoline is no ordinary woman. She is a genuine and entertaining presenter on book tours and in interviews and generous to book clubs. Just like a book reviewer wants an author to be – real.

As the book jacket says, Lisa lives with too many pets (my kind of person!), some of whom are cranky that they didn’t make the cover of this book. My only question is: who is the dog on the front cover?

(Photo credit: April Narby)