The Opposite of Maybe

Just started reading the book The Opposite of Maybe. I'm on page 19 and already it's pissed me off like hell!

I'm not a man hater, I'm not against relationships, I'm not against marriage, but I am against women modeling themselves to be whatever a man wants them to be, or whatever they THINK a man wants them to be.

I'm against women following blindly like sheep to fulfill the dreams of a man, no matter what they have to give up.

I'm against women giving up their own identity for a man.

In the book this woman Rosie is asking her mate Jonathan to go with her to visit her 88 year old grandmother, the woman who raised her. She has no one but her grandmother as her mother died when she was three and her grandmother raised her. She has to go and tell her grandmother that she believes it's time to have a home health aide come in to take care of her and she is dreading telling her grandmother this. She needs Jonathan's support and love and she asks him to please come with her. He makes faces, tells her he's a busy man and he's got things to do.

She knows he has nothing to do, nothing as important as what she is going to do so she starts to try to convince him and he tells her "No, no, no. This is not going to be a negotiation, where I say what I'm doing and then you say it's not important."

Then his cell phone rings and he picks it up and then mouths to her "this is important" and heads outside to take the call. She watches him through the window of the restaurant where they are having breakfast.

He finishes his call, comes back in and she says "Well?" He tells her the call was from a man in California (Rosie and Jonathan live in New York) who is starting up a museum and called to offer him the opportunity to move to California to be a partner in starting up this museum.

Rosie is stunned, she can't believe it, she tells him "You're just going to move to California and leave everything behind?" He instantly starts bashing their current life, that they are stagnating and they need something new, that he can't get it together there anymore, he needs a new beginning, he's getting old, he feels like he's falling in a hole, he needs something big and important to happen.

Rosie instantly thinks of her grandmother, her job, her friends and he tells her, "Oh, now don't go invoking you grandmother on me. If your grandmother thought you were even thinking of giving up one single opportunity because of her, she'd run you down with her convertible. And as for your friends--there's' e-mail and Facebook and cell phones."

This man...who 5 minutes ago could not take time out of his precious day to accompany Rosie to see her grandmother and support her in giving her grandmother bad news, expects Rosie at the drop of a hat and after one 5 minute phone call to CHANGE HER WHOLE LIFE because he wants to do something he wants to do!

So what does she do? She thinks in her head that this man "has said no to absolutely everything imaginable for so long now--to sex, to parties, to pieces of pie after dinner, to creativity, even to the little girl at their table this morning. He walks through life with a big chilly NO on his lips, and now, by God, he has said yes to something, and he needs her to say it too!"

So she says Yes.

That's as far as I've gotten and as I said, I'm pissed as hell.

This post was inspired by the novel The Opposite of Maybe by Maddie Dawson. At the age of 44 Rosie finds herself suddenly single and pregnant. She tries to hide in her grandmother's home, but meets two men that will change her life forever. Join From Left to Write on April 8 as we discuss The Opposite of Maybe. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

UPDATE - I finished the book and luckily I was able to finish reading it and ended up liking it, although it was very predictable.