Since Amazon didn't post an editorial review, here's the description from the back of the book to help you decide if this book is for you: "In the beginning they were three. Joanna and Ted Kramer, and four-year-old Billy -- his big brown eyes bright with curiosity and wonder. A perfect family. Then on day the mother abandons them. Divorce. And now they are two. Father and son. Caring and cared for, learning what loving and belonging are all about, until there is a bond between them that nothing can break. Nothing and nobody -- except maybe a mother who, almost two years later, changes her mind and wants her little boy back ..."

Avery Gorman's book is about a girl who is date raped and her fight to regain her soul. It raises an important question about our whole approach to sexual morality. In our society it is increasingly suggested that we should by sexually desirable and experienced in order to be popular and happy, and that our qualities be publically and even aggressively transmitted. Sex comes first, then, possibily, respect, love, commitment. I suggest this is all back to front. ANY sexual encounter can lead to rape. If we viewd relationships differently, that truly fulfilling sex only follows after respect, love and commitment, there would be no date-rape. This is NOT to say that a girl who is date-raped was "asking" for it: there is no excuse for aggressive assault. But young people need to be educated to realize that true relationships develop from character rather than physical attraction and that true popularity wuill come from maintaining that stand.

Keep turning the pages, you think, it might get better, there might somewhere be one original scene, thought or character, some insight about that big number that eventually looms up for all of us who live long enough. But forget it, not this time, not here, as divorced Doug frets endlessly -- about his ex-wife remarrying, about his children, about his sports writing job under the new management of the sports daily where he works, about his sex life, about his incompatibility with anyone else's musical tastes, about his aging parents. Ho hum, I'm 50 and I need my sleep. This one won't keep me from it.

As Doug approaches 50, questions begin to surface in his life. The most poignant question is whether or not he has done/is doing his best in different parts of his life .. the story of a person refinding himself amidst his past, present and future.

Well-written, funny and serious.

I will recommend this book to anyone who wants a fast-moving, fairly light read about a man's misery and subsequent re-birth. The questions asked here are faced by lots of people, and the reader is amusingly pulled in as he tries to figure out how this guy will resolve his crisis. Give it a chance!