Seeing as Your Shoes Are Soon to Be on Fire: Essays

Monroy (The Marriage Act) chronicles her efforts to find lasting love with the (often unsolicited) advice of her opinionated mother, a retired U.S. visa screener referred to as “The Profiler,” who she first wrote about in 2012 in an essay for the Modern Love column in the New York Times. The boyfriend “profiling” goes back as far as Monroy’s teenage years, when her mother had an undesirable suitor deported for drug use. Other unsuccessful relationships involve a Wall Street power broker and a “Robin Williams-esque” free spirit who goes to Burning Man and never comes back. The book’s title is taken from a voicemail left by an ex-boyfriend shortly before he destroys her laptop, guitar, journals, as well as other prized possessions. The most compelling essay, “Somebody’s French Girl,” is an account of a tryst with a semifamous author that provides insight into managing expectations and the layers of experience, how we can construct a vivid romantic narrative around someone when we are merely a “bit player” in their own story. Interspersed are sections titled “A Note from the Desk of the Profiler,” in which Monroy allows her mother to chime in with her side. As the stories are roughly chronological, it is interesting to watch Monroy learn her lessons, to stop romanticizing her partners or assigning them to neat boxes, to assert boundaries and rules, even if they get broken. When she finally gets her happy ending, it feels earned.[em] (Oct.) [/em]