The Opposite of Love is a standard “woe betide the wealthy young lawyer” tale, a subject on which I’m something of an expert. Emily Haxby doesn't like her job, doesn't get along with her father, is watching her grandfather deteriorate, and decides, somewhat inexplicably, to end a happy relationship with her boyfriend just as he is about to propose. Nothing that you can’t cure once you start seeing a therapist, apparently. The tricky part in these sorts of books lies in ginning up sympathy for the well-heeled but still kinda sad, and the author pretty much manages it with a dry, outside-the-head-but-in-the-first-person perspective on her protagonist’s inner agonies.

But better than the dry perspective is the lawyer stuff. Emily works at a fancy New York firm, has to deal with a handsy partner who brings in too many clients to fire, and does a nice deposition of a backwoodsy type who is suing a bad guy corporate polluter. Emily interrogates her country deponent about prior health problems, poor diet, other potential polluters nearby, and the like, to the delight of her nasty partner, the consternation of plaintiff’s counsel, and the confusion of her quarry. I delighted too – moral ambiguity! The big guy isn’t always the bad guy! Or, at least, I delighted until the effective but lascivious and mean partner got fired, some other much more politically correct partner, who wears pink high tops to work so you know she’s cool, forced the bad guy polluter to surrender for big bucks, and Emily took a job with a public-interest organization where she could really start sticking it to the man.

Here’s some background on the admirably young, and now book-deal wealthy author of the novel, Julie Buxbaum.

Sort of recommended.

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