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    Until the Real Thing Comes Along: A Novel
    Until the Real Thing Comes Along: A Novel
    Until the Real Thing Comes Along: A Novel
    Audiobook6 hours

    Until the Real Thing Comes Along: A Novel

    Written by Elizabeth Berg

    Narrated by Kate Rudd

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Patty Murphy is facing that pivotal point in a woman's life when her biological clock ticks as insistently as a beating heart. Will she find Mr. Right and start a family? But Patty is in love—with a man who is not only attractive and financially sound, but sensitive and warmhearted. There's just one small problem: he is also gay.

    Against her better judgment, and pleas from family and friends, Patty refuses to give up on Ethan. Every man she dates ultimately leaves her aching for the gentle comfort and intimacy she shares with him. But even as she throws eligible bachelors to the wayside to spend yet another platonic night with Ethan, Patty longs more and more for the consolation of loving and being loved. In the meantime she must content herself with waiting—until the real thing comes along.…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781480501744
    Until the Real Thing Comes Along: A Novel
    Author

    Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five books, including the New York Times bestsellers True to Form, Never Change, Open House, The Story of Arthur Truluv, Night of Miracles, and The Confession Club. She lives outside of Chicago. Find out more at Elizabeth-Berg.net.

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    Reviews for Until the Real Thing Comes Along

    3.5/5

    185 ratings14 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I quit "reading" this book when the tape broke, but might have continued for a while otherwise. I have a prejudice against people who willfully refuse to make the best of what is available, in favor of whining about what cannot be. I was also bothered by the insensitivity towards the gay ex-fiance, not to say that this does not happen, but I do not believe that it is characteristic of a true friend.
    • 4/5
      Other Good Readers have said this was below par for Elizabeth Berg. The other novels must be really really good is all I can say.
    • 4/5
      It's the recipe for ultimate disappointment - being in love with your best friend who happens to be gay. I found myself feeling impatient with Patty - professing to want a husband and babies so very badly but being completely fixated on the idea that only her gay friend, Ethan, will do in the role of building a family. Really this novel is about the experiment the two decide to conduct - maybe they can make it work, since they both really want a baby. It is only when reality sets in that Patty finally comes to some kind of resolution about both her relationship with Ethan, and her perpetual longings.
    • 4/5
      Splendid writing! I loved the writing and felt as though I was right there in the room listening to the conversation. It's not an action book or a mystery, although there is some level of mystery, if you will, concerning what is going to happen in the lives of the people. This is a very realistic slice of life, told with real talent and humor by the author.
    • 3/5
      Just a quick note. Here it is, probably about 5 years later, and I read the description of this and cannot remember it *at all*. I know I've read a Berg or two, and I know I've read some 5K books since I (guess, as it's pre-GR, so pre-cataloging) read this, but still. Nothing. So, I'm betting that's not a real high recommendation of the value of the time spent reading the darn thing.
    • 2/5
      From the book jacket: What do you do when your life isn’t living up to your dreams? When the man you love is unavailable, and yet you long for a family, a home? What is the cost of compromising until the real thing comes along?

      My reactions
      I really wanted to like this. I’ve read a number of Berg’s books and liked them all. She has a gift for dialogue and for letting the reader into her character’s lives and motivations. But …

      Patty’s constant wishy-washy attitudes, her complete inability to move on with her life just irritate the heck out of me. I didn’t care what happened to her in her sad little life.

      I WAS interested in the story with her parents, and wish Berg had explored that storyline rather than Patty’s non-existent fantasy love life.
    • 3/5
      This book fits into the "too close for comfort" shelf so well I had to create one just for it. Now, I may not have a gay best friend that I'm in love with, or do a ridiculously poor job of selling houses, but the baby-craving to absurd levels (as in "maybe you should stop staring at other people's children before someone calls the cops on you" levels)? Hell yeah: I'm right there.

      And Berg is one of my favorite authors, and she tackles the subject maybe a little bit too well, because the book made me uncomfortable. I did not want to find out how Patty solved her problems, mostly because I knew it would not be a solution applicable to my problems. Also, Patty's ability to shield herself from things she doesn't want to recognize (they are too long and spoiler-ish to list here, but trust me, as a reader you see them coming from miles away & a few of those plot points were also uncomfortably close to my own experiences dealing with family and friends) was, perhaps, also a little bit too close to the bone for me.

      Usually, seeing characters I can relate to is what reading is all about for me, but, as much as I enjoy Berg's writing style and her ability to describe things in concise and apt ways - "I always thought I'd have five or six children, and I have imagined so many lovely domestic scenes featuring me and my offspring. Here we are outside on a hot summer day, running through the sprinkler, The children wear bright fluorescent bathing suits in pink and green and yellow; I wear cutoffs and a T-shirt. There is fruit salad in the refrigerator. Later, I will let the older ones squirt whipped cream for the younger ones; then, if they pester me enough in the right way, I'll let them squirt it into their mouths - and mine." - I almost couldn't finish the book, it was that bad. Melancholy mood to begin with, add a dose of (much too realistic) fiction, and even one of my favorite authors gets a bad rating, unfortunately.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite contemporary women's fictions writers. She tackles every day topics like relationships and break-ups with great sensibility and humor.Always new-never boring.
    • 4/5
      A woman, hearing her biological clock ticking, asks her long time, close, gay friend to impregnate her. He's an excellent choice.
    • 3/5
      Originally, this book was slow and boring, but as the characters developed I was drawn into the story of Patti who loved Ethan who was gay who loved Patti but not in the way she needed and of Patti's father who loveed his wife who develops alzheimers and thus is no longer able to love him as she originally did before her mind was taken from her.While at first this seemed to be a light, breezy kind of read, it truly is a book filled with incredible poignancy and understanding of the trite but true phrase "the meaning of love."
    • 3/5
      This one was so forgettable that I was halfway through it and then realized I had previously read it several years ago. It wasn't terrible, just not particularly good. And much less depressing than most of her stories where the man dies a horrible death.
    • 4/5
      A wry look at being single, desiring children, defining "family."
    • 5/5
      This story is a bit unusual, yet entirely believeable. I recommend it!
    • 4/5
      Like I do with most Bergs, I read this in one day. Her poignant, feel-it-in-your-spine observations were thick on the page, as they are in all of her books. I was especially touched by the descriptions of babies as the main character struggled with singleness and the ticking of her biological clock. I was less thrilled withher solution to the problem (becoming pregnant by her gay ex-lover). It was an interesting idea, and the author is honest about the emotional difficulties involved, but it just didn't resonatewith me, and I didn't want her to go through with it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, and Ms. Berg certainly didn't miss her mark with her trademark raw, emotional descriptions that make yourealize that you've thought the same thing your whole life but just never thought to put it exactly that way.