I’m fine with romance but not when it is the pivotal turning point that makes the character change her ways and get out of her depression. My god feminist writing at work here people. The author decides the only way to get over one man is under another (literally). Instead of going through some momentous montage scene of getting her shit together and realizing she's an empowered single mom that doesn't need a horrible man in her life. She spends 40% of this way too long novel in a depression slump where she neglects her new born child to sulk and drink and sulk and sleep and then drink some more. To say Claire is an embarrassing wet drip of woman is putting it lightly. She soon after takes her newborn child back to her eccentric family so she can lick her wounds in the comfort of her old home and thus meets a new younger man named Adam. Watermelon follow's our protagonist Claire as she is left by her husband James for her downstairs neighbour, about 2 minutes after giving birth to their daughter. In this very funny, very fresh, very wise novel, Marian Keyes delivers an unforgettable debut-and a heroine so irresistible that she feels like a new best friend. In fact, so much better that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise. And there, sheltered by the love of an (albeit quirky) family, she gets better. To her gorgeous man-eating sister Helen, her soap-watching mother, her bewildered father. So, in the absence of any better offers, Claire decides to go home to her family in Dublin.

Until quite recently especially when wearing a green maternity jumper that was the only thing left that fit her-she felt she bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a popular summer fruit.) Claire is left with a beautiful newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a body that she can hardly bear to look at in the mirror. And he hasn't even had the decency to leave her for someone glamorous just the frumpy woman who lives in the apartment downstairs. Then, on the day she gives birth to her first baby, James visits her in the recovery room to inform her that he's leaving her. At twenty-nine, fun-loving, good-natured Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job.

Watermelon by Marian Keyes