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In the end, what makes Dunn's novel such a pleasure to read is the very thing that keeps it from being a breathless page-turner: Holly's singular spirituality. She may be as baffled as everyone else about how to achieve happiness, but she also knows that happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be. In a world—fictional and non- —where doing a good thing gets you accused of having a messiah complex, and doing whatever you want is justified as following your path, Holly never stops trying to figure out where her duty lies. Underneath it all—the sex, the shopping, the city—she's an old-fashioned heroine. Also funny.
Jincy Willett - New York Times


Sarah Dunn's Secrets to Happiness zips along hilariously, fueled by pitch-perfect dialogue…[It] is an antic urban comedy, with enough neurotic characters to fill the cast of a Woody Allen movie. It's great fun.
Boston Globe


The hapless protagonist of this topical novel is such a clever observer of modern life, offering a wealth of Exacto-sharp theories that echo sentiments we may feel but would hesitate to express.... Charming and approaching Tina-Fey funny, Dunn, whose first novel was The Big Love (no connection to the HBO series), combines crackling dialogue and absurdly real-feeling scenarios to create a big-city smart, yet universally appealing, little gem.
People


Secrets to Happiness is smart, bitingly funny, laced with sitcom-sharp dialogue and bittersweet. Far from a confectionary tale, it reads more like a spiritual journey, one that follows Holly and a cast of supporting characters as they try to turn their lives around.... But since this is not a chick-lit book, a guy is not the answer here. For Holly and her supporting cast, the secret to happiness is embracing the fact that, as one character states, it's O.K. to live an ordinary life. This means accepting a life they would have otherwise shunned.
New York Observer


Dunn charts several New Yorkers' lives in this snappy novel. The spotlight most often falls on Holly Frick, a 35-year-old divorcée whose egg walls "are taking on the consistency of tissue paper as we speak." A writer whose cheeky first novel bombed, Holly now resides low enough on the TV totem pole to be cranking out after-school dreck with her gay pal Leonard. Meanwhile, her best friend, Amanda, is cheating on her husband, and Holly adopts Chester, a cute little dog with cancer whose hopeful approach to life mirrors Holly's. While Holly's love life follows a formula-familiar trajectory, Amanda's romantic flailing ensnares Holly, and Chester's destiny takes an unexpected turn that means big changes for both of them. Although cliches pop up (the supergay friend, a $1,200 purse splurge), the energetic and witty prose speeds along the narrative. It's smarter than the usual single-in-the-city fare, and funnier, too.
Publishers Weekly


Like Dunn's heroine in her debut, The Big Love, Holly Frick is brokenhearted and looking for happiness against the backdrop of hectic New York City. Holly believes in doing the right thing. Whether it's a result of her evangelical Christian upbringing or just a generally overactive conscience, the "right thing" includes adopting a dog with a brain tumor and meeting her married friend's paramour because her friend thinks they'll like each other. The assorted cast of supporting characters includes a 22-year-old lover, a skinny girl who finally agrees to date the overweight guy from her gym, and a gay man who has an unhealthy relationship with his attention deficit disorder meds. These characters circle around Holly in an exploration of six degrees of separation as she touches each of them—and they her—in their quests for happiness. Readers of Dunn's previous novel and fans of Jennifer Weiner and Jane Green will enjoy the sophisticated tone of this classic searching-for-love story. Recommended for popular fiction collections.
Anika Fajardo - Library Journal


Holly Frick is smart and sassy, loyal and dedicated. All the qualities a woman could want in a girlfriend, but not the ones that seem to resonate with men, if her roster of failed relationships is any indicator. There’s her ex-husband, Alex, with whom she’s still in love; her ex-boyfriend, Spence, a womanizing creep whom Holly scathingly immortalized in her first novel; and Lucas, a 22-year-old boy-toy who, for all his playful sexuality, ultimately makes Holly feel like a cradle-robbing matron. But then she meets Jack, an opinionated Buddhist who is having an affair with her married best friend; and even though Holly takes an immediate dislike to him, she has to admit there’s something undeniable lurking just beneath the surface. Dunn displays a rapier wit; a perfectly nuanced gift for savvy, sophisticated dialogue; and an endearing moral compass, which she uses to great advantage as she blithely navigates the fraught and fatuous world of trendy New York’s treacherous dating scene.
Kirkus Reviews