HIS INSIGNIFICANT OTHER

Another debut novel for the long list of Bridget Jones’s Diary wannabes, the heroine a 29-year-old African-American from Brooklyn.

With a degree in film from Columbia, Casey lives in Brooklyn and has settled into teaching at an unnamed second-rate college. When she isn’t working, she spends most of her time in various Manhattan bars and hangouts with her tight circle of friends, most of whom, the women particularly, she distrusts and dislikes—women here are so territorial and competitive that there’s not much room for friendship. As things begin, John Paul has been Casey’s boyfriend for exactly a year, even though for the last three months she has imposed celibacy, ever since he admitted to having slept with a former girlfriend in the earliest days of their relationship. For reasons never much gone into, he has gone along with the celibacy. Then, just when Casey is ready to drop her ban on sex, the old girlfriend, Mali, moves back to town and into their lives. Casey is immediately threatened, sure that Mali, conniving and unlikable in the extreme, is out to win John Paul back. Unfortunately, John Paul is so undeveloped as a character that it’s hard to know what all the fuss between the two women is about. When he and Casey aren’t arguing over Mali, their relationship consists of watching TV and falling asleep. And the fact that Casey’s one real female confidante (conveniently gay so no competition) hates him is an early warning that John Paul isn’t Mr. Right. Of course, an alternative arrives on the scene: a cute firefighter named Josh who lives near her in Brooklyn—important because everyone else, including John Paul, lives in Manhattan. Logistics play a big part in the plot.

Harmless escape—and, as the title says, insignificant.