Beginners Greek by James Collins

USA Today called Beginner’s Greek “a literary love story for grown-ups,” and Library Journal compares James Collins to Jane Austen. With a write-up like that, I wasn’t at all sure what to expect. I have a bad reaction to hyperbole, so I probably wouldn’t even have started to read the book in a bookstore. But Hachette Book Group had included it in a gift parcel that I won from Nights and Weekends, and I’m so glad, or I’d have missed a rare treat.

James Collins writes with the same detachment and attention to detail as Jane Austen, but his characters, relationships and predicaments are thoroughly up to date. From promiscuity to trophy wife to lifelong love and devotion, every shape and form of marriage is represented. And the path of true love is ever tortuous, running through coincidence, calamity, and the capriciousness of fate. Near the end of the book, with too many pages to go, I thought all was about to be revealed between the two love-birds, but a final twist threatened to unravel everything. I found myself wondering how the author would bring it all together, but I knew for sure he would. And of course, he did.

This book is truly a comedy of errors, Shakespearean in its scope, Austenian in its charm, and thoroughly modern in its characters and its world. A fine fun read, and it’ll surely make a fine fun movie one day.