HER: A Novel

After leaving her stressful job at a teen magazine, Elise, a 34-year-old grad student and freelance editor, meets Donald, a "freakishly" tall, handsome private school teacher who's recently swapped his hectic Manhattan existence for a simpler life in Washington, D.C. Romance and an engagement ensue, though Elise's wedding jitters evolve into unbridled paranoia when she discovers Donald's well-connected, younger, thinner, taller, fuller-lipped, bigger-busted, and better educated ex-fiancé, Adrienne, has just accepted a prestigious job in Washington, and wants joint custody of their old dog. Filled with witty observations and dialogue, and a uniformly off-kilter cast of characters, Zigman's latest (following along the same tried but true lines as Bridget Jones' Diary) smoothly translates to audio, and, like her previous novel (Animal Husbandry), would easily be adapted to film. Broadway and television actress Levine interprets the tale with sarcasm, bitterness and the requisite unenthusiastic "eye-rolling tone" necessary here, capturing Donald's cluelessness and providing a good English accent for Elise's older, quirky best friend. Despite Elise's attempts to befriend Adrienne, the "evil twins of doom and gloom" win out, and her life is reduced to an endless succession of drive-bys, imagined betrayals, snooping and illicit phone message retrievals. Fans of Hugh Grant romantic comedies will devour this formulaic yet amusing tale. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 15) (May)