This slender guide to home buying for single women offers a plethora of emotional support and anecdotal entertainment, but only a smattering of practical advice. Musselman (The Hip Girl's Handbook for the Working World
) extols the benefits of independently pursuing happiness and security and refusing to wait for or depend on a partner. A solo home buyer herself, the author champions home ownership as the ultimate safety net capable of providing women with security and confidence. She arms her readers with the tools they'll need to navigate treacherous real estate waters: the fundamentals of credit approval, mortgages, house hunting, negotiations, contracts—and she even addresses buyer's remorse, renovations and refinancing. The text is peppered with helpful sidebars and long success stories, forming a comfortable, chatty narrative that makes the process of buying a home seem manageable. However, the information Musselman provides is simplistic and acts more as reassurance to those struggling with the emotional roller coaster that is home buying, rather than as a real aid to the planning and logistics of the purchase. First-time homeowners seeking solid information would be better off looking elsewhere. (June)
