Review: 20 Times a Lady by Karyn Bosnak.

Posted December 19, 2008 by Rowena in Reviews | 5 Comments

Main Character: Delilah Darling
Grade: 4 out of 5

How many men does it take to find true love?

Delilah Darling’s magic number was supposed to be twenty. She always thought she’d find the perfect guy by the time she’d slept with twenty of them. But when she wakes up naked in her disgusting boss’s bed after a drunken night out, she’s filled with regret — and realizes she’s hit her self-imposed limit. Unwilling to up her number but unable to imagine a life of celibacy, Delilah does what any girl in her situation would do: she tracks down every man she’s ever slept with in a last-ditch effort to make it work with one of them.

A hilarious romp through Delilah’s past loves, 20 Times a Lady proves that in the end, numbers don’t matter. True love will come when you’re open and ready to accept it.

I picked this book up because my friend Ames totally loved this book. She led me over to Karyn Bosnak’s blog, Pretty in the City and I read some posts and thought, holy wow this woman is hilarious, so I was pretty stoked to get this book and read it.

It started out really good, I was hecka loving Delilah and I was loving her personality, her apartment and her sexy neighbor, Colin but then she went on this outrageous road trip to find her ex boyfriends in hopes of finding happiness with them so that she doesn’t up her number to 21.

How crazy is that? She hires her next door neighbor, Colin to track down all of her exes and she goes on a road trip to see if she can reconnect with any of them. I’ll be honest and let you know that it made for some hilarious scenes but as she went from city to city stalking and then trying to get to know each of her ex boyfriends, I got hecka embarrassed for her and then I groaned over some of the things that she did because some of the things she did made me wince in embarrassment for her. I was embarrassed for a fictional character and though I ended up liking the book, I got good and pissed with Del more than once in this book.

So she’s on this road trip to find her exes so that she can keep her number at 20 (and by her number, I mean her sexual partners) and she’s running around trying to make things work, build happy endings with men that she broke up with. Men that did things, were things she didn’t want to be with anymore and still, she went to see all of them and out of all the men that she ever went out with, the one that I thought oh okay, maybe this guy I could see her having a happy ending with (well with the exception of the man that she actually ends up with) was the guy who’s in rehab and a total nut case.

And the things she did in order to see these guys was just laughable. She got a dog to see the first one (and Ames, I totally thought about you with Rod and his dog named Max), she checks herself into rehab for another one and then she gets stuck in rehab for a few days and when she finally comes out, everyone is beyond themselves with worry over her and after that, I found her to be totally irresponsible and though she was sorry for it, I thought that okay, she finally realizes that what she’s doing is not the best way to handle things but does she stop? NO! I was so mad when she didn’t let up on this whole ridiculous chase after the whole Matt King thing that I wanted to stop reading and then things got better because she went back home, still single and still going to end up with a #21 but does it end there and does she stop from pissing me off?

NO!

Eventually she gets it right but the getting there was pretty ridonkculous and I wanted to slap her in the head so many different times but I’m glad that I finished this book. I’m glad that I got to know Del and I’m glad that she ended up with the guy she ended up with. This book was a rollercoaster of just everything and I’m totally glad that I read it. I rejoiced with Delilah and I got so pissed off at her but I ended up really caring about her the same way that Michelle cared for her and the same way that Colin, her Mom, Daisy and everyone cared for her.

This was a good book and I totally recommend it to anyone who is looking for a spunky heroine with a self journey that is going to drive you totally bonkers but make you laugh anyway.

This book is available from Harper Paperbacks. You can buy it here.