Falling for Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love

by Anna David

“Funny, smart, and compulsively likeable, Anna David is this decade’s answer to Carrie Bradshaw. There won’t be a single second you won’t root for her as she bravely tries to answer the resonating question: how can I be my best self?”
—Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of The Department of Lost and Found

The sex-and-relationship expert on G4’s Attack of the Show, author of Party Girl and Bought, and the editor of Reality Matters, Anna David is smart, successful, and single. Falling for Me is Anna’s provocative, eye-opening, and inspiring chronicle of the year she changed her life by following the advice of Cosmopolitan Magazine guru Helen Gurley Brown in her classic Sex and the Single Girl. Anna’s story of “How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love”—and her determination to either find “the one” or accept once and for all that it’s not in the cards—is touching and transformative, exhilarating and uplifting, and belongs on every bookshelf next to Eat, Pray, Love  and The Happiness Project.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Self Help, Biography, Travel, Chick Lit

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2011

About the author

Anna David is a New York Times bestselling author of eight books and the founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, a boutique book publishing company trusted by high-income entrepreneurs to build seven-figure authority.

A three-time TEDx speaker, she has appeared on Good Morning America, Today Show, The Talk and dozens of other programs.

Anna has also written for the New York Times, Time, Playboy, Vanity Fair and the Huffington Post, among many others, and been written about in such publications as Entrepreneur, Martha Stewart magazine and Forbes.

Her first novel, Party Girl, is in development as a feature film and she's the on-air book critic for KATU Portland. Her company has published over 50 books, many of which have become Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers.

She lives in Hollywood with her boyfriend, filmmaker Jim Agnew, their son Benjamin and their cranky-looking cat Bernie.

Reviews

[Ciara · Rating 1 out of 5]

i'm absolutely dumbfounded that i am the only person who has given this book a one star review so far. although it is pretty new. i'm sure more people will join me as the book circulates & people make the mistake of reading it.

i thought this memoir was absolutely dreadful. i concede that i have a well-documented irritation with stunt memoirs, in which someone tries some stupid bullshit for a year & then writes a memoir documenting their little experiment. but anna david's experiment also managed to be weirdly anti-feminist, self-loathing, shallow, & disgustingly confessional at the same time.

we open with anna's embarrassing obsession with a married man (who also happens to be a famous artist, supposedly). she meets him at a party & he pretty much sums up all of the issues that are causing her to remain single into her mid-30s in one kind of misogynistic, extremely patronizing sentence, & this makes her fall "in love" with him because i guess her "type" is dudes that put her down & point out all of her obnoxious neuroses. i can't tell if she's a masochist or just staggeringly un-self-aware. i'm thinking it's a little from column A, a little from column B.

anna spends all of two weeks hanging out with married art dude. they never become physical in any way, but they both admit that they are in love with one another. of course, he is married (& a douche, but i guess i'm the only one who noticed that part), so they agree that they can't do anything about their love. & listen, i am not really a big fan of he's just not that into you or anything, but if a dude is actually in love with you for real, he will probably try to be with you. even if he is married to someone else. i know hollywood has sold women this bill of goods about how tortured love affairs exist where two people would be together & have a fairy tale romance if not for some troublesome obstacle like a wife, but that's really not the way things work in real life. unless you are a douche or an idiot. like these two.

when anna returns home to new york city, she spends literally months mourning the end of the love affair that wasn't before finding herself in the self-help section of a barnes & noble bookstore (& seriously? an author that brags about frequenting barnes & noble? wow). she finds a copy of sex & the single girl by helen gurley brown. gurley brown founded "cosmopolitan" magazine & wrote this book in the early 60s as a kind of how-to guide for the swinging working single urban girl who may not necessarily want to devote herself to finding a husband & being a housewife. it caused a stir in its day & kind of set the template for "sex & the city"-style culture/everything that is wrong with third wave feminism. it is a revelation for anna. apparently she had never heard of this book or gurley brown before, which indicates to me that she is shockingly uninformed about her own career path, seeing as how she has been self-employed as a romance/sex columnist for several years. does she just not read books at all? it certainly would explain a lot.

anna decides to follow gurley brown's (antiquated, sexist) advice for a year & see what happens. actually, she wants to see if it will help her land her dream man, although she claims that it is actually just a journey of self-discovery (since--spoiler--no men are landed). what follows is about 300 pages of that one friend you have who constantly talks about how she is totally okay being single, she doesn't need a man to complete her, women that allow themselves to be domesticated by relationships are cheating themselves, i am woman, etc etc, but whenever she gets drunk or doesn't get a call back from a man she went on a date with, she calls you up in tears, wondering why she is so chronically undateable. there are DEFINITELY women out there who truly are not on the hunt for a relationship...& then there are the women who employ that rhetoric as a smokecsreen to convince themselves that they are not distraught over not being in a relationship. anna is solidly in this latter category.

she leaves no stone unturned in her quest to get a guy/feel good about herself. she redesigns the interior of her apartment, updates her wardrobe, takes voice modulation lessons, learns how to cook, creates a match.com profile, goes speed dating, takes up rollerblading...i mean, do you see where this is going? on the one hand, it's shit that you should be embarrassed to admit (rollerblading? is it 1989?), & on the other hand, it's the "domestic arts" that she claims she has not permitted herself to enjoy thanks to the poisonous influence of feminism. lest you think i am merely inferring, she actually explains several times that feminism has conditioned women to believe that being feminine (by which she means dressing in a sexy manner, knowing how to cook, or liking to have flowers in your apartment) is shameful & frivolous. she is seriously one step away from explaining that she really wants to embrace her femininity because it's her duty to be a woman who can make a man feel like a man. i guess it's no surprise that she sounds like a dating handbook from 1962, because she is modeling her life on what is basically a dating handbook from 1962. i'm surprised she didn't include a chapter on douching with lysol or flying to puerto rico to obtain illegal abortions.

& sprinkled throughout these boring & overly detailed stories about how long her curtains are & the importance of a 35-year-old woman owning a nice pair of ruched leggings are bizarre confessional stories about how she rused to be a raging cokehead, or always felt like "the other woman" in her parents' relationship because her father treated her like a wife. um. WHAT? i get that anna has been in therapy for a long-ass time & sometimes talking about this shit with a relative stranger every week makes a person lose their sense of appropriate boundaries so they write about their quasi-incestuous relationship with their own father like it's just no thang, but trust me, it's pretty jarring to mix a paragraph about your history as a coke addict into a chapter on learning to roast a chicken. & don't even get me started on the INCREDIBLY graphic story she relates about getting mixed up with a dom who introduced anna to her submissive side. if i'd wanted to read amateur erotica, i would have.

& then, right when i was thinking about how much i disliked anna & this book, i got the section about anna wondering if she was still fertile. she decided to make an appointment with a fertility specialist to "get her fertility checked out". really. she actually made an appointment with an IVF clini to "get things checked out". um, anna? you actually get your fertility "checked out" by either your gynecologist or a fertility specialist recommended by your gynecologist. not some random IVF clinic. when she goes in for her appointment, the nurses jump right into explaining what to expect from the IVF cycle & anna is like, "wait, whaaaaat?" i wanted to leap into the book & shake her. no one is born just magically knowing what to expect in an IVF clinic, but the woman is a freelance writer. you'd think she'd have some understanding of research.

she opts not to freeze her eggs for later use, & wonders if all those people out there having babies have really thought about what having babies is all about. she thinks that people treat it as just the next item on the to-do list after getting married, & haven't stopped to consider toddler tantrums or sullen teens.

how. FUCKING. condescending. can you possibly fucking GET? perhaps ANNA perceives of babies as "next on the to-do list" because she made it pretty fucking clear throughout her entire book that she perceives of marriage as something to check off that same list, but a lot of parents out there have actually stopped to consider that babies don't stay babies & that every day of parenting is not going to be super magical happy land. but then again, most people who end up in an IVF clinic know what IVF is, so....

this book was awful, anna seems like a terrible person, please don't read this book.

[Ariel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Book Club Girl Jen for providing me with a copy of this book. Jen will be hosting a radio show with the author of this book Anna David on her blog talk radio show in November for anyone who would care to join in.

I love a good memoir, if you lived with sheep for a year or ate only red foods for a year or tried to walk backwards for a year I probably read about your journey of self discovery. I kid of course but there does seem to be a plethora of books out there by people who choose to do "something" for a year and then chronicles their adventures in a book. Which brings me to Anna David's book where she attempts to improve herself over the course of a year in hopes of finally attaining that relationship with the opposite sex that she decides she has been missing out on. This is a perfectly fine goal. If what you are doing is not working out then try something else. Right off the bat I found that I really didn't like Anna. She apparently spent her 20's as a drug addict, which was probably the reason she missed hooking up for life in her twenties. Not only that but when we are first introduced to her she admits that she has an obsession with a married man and her relationship with him is extremely inappropriate. I didn't know anything about Anna before reading this book. She apparently has written other novels and is a sort of Carrie Bradshaw/ Sex in the City styled relationship expert. When you don't know anything about a person and are first confronted with the fact that they were a self absorbed, spoiled drug addict hooked on a married man, they don't come off as too sympathetic. I almost stopped reading there but since the book was given to me in exchange for agreeing to participate in the radio show I thought I would be fair and read the whole book. As soon as Anna got off the Will/ married man kick the book got a lot better (although she does revisit the unhealthy obsession several more times throughout the book). I found her attempts at self improvement entertaining to read. The apartment fix up, closet overhaul, and attempts at cooking are things all women can relate to married or not. All of this self discovery is set against Helen Gurley Brown's book Sex and the Single Girl written in the 60's. Some of her sixties advice is still applicable today and some of it is not. I have never read the book and a familiarity of it may have enhance the reading of this memoir. Along with the self improvement, Anna attempts to meet men through match.com, speed dating, friends, and whatever way she can think of. I probably felt the most empathy for her while reading these passages. She delves into a discussion which I think all women have with themselves at some point, especially if they are in their thirties and unmarried. Is Mr. Perfect for me out there or is it okay to settle for Mr. Pretty Good? Of course Anna has her share of dates with Mr. Totally Wrong as well. As amusing as her dating adventures were to read, I lost all patience with her when she became rude to the gorgeous, humanitarian doctor because he dared to eat a bowl of cereal in her apartment. I suggest that if you are that easily annoyed, marriage may in fact not be for you. I found myself disliking Anna again and I found it difficult to finish the book. Fortunately for me I found myself near the end. One trip to Spain and Morocco and a quick reflection on her experience and we were finished. Anna did not find love with a man but instead learned to love herself. That pretty much sums up everything. This book gave me some things to think about but over all I personally found the author off putting as did apparently many of her dates.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna David’s Falling For Me is the latest in memoirs written by young, talented and beautiful writers about how they thought they would find everything they ever wanted in New York City [or insert glittery city here], but didn’t. Though I didn’t find anything truly novel about David’s take, I enjoyed this fun and often informative read.

My favorite bits of Falling For Me came when David was at her most vulnerable and self-deprecating. I appreciated her unique brand of humor and could definitely see fragments of myself in her story. I think most women will relate in some way to David’s plight; it’s all part of the human experience. No matter how successful, everyone has gotten a glimpse of themselves in a mirror and thought, Who is that? David sets out to answer that question -- and I think that was brave.

But . . . but. I don’t know. I guess knowing that David is a writer with several novels and other works under her belt made this feel sort of gimmicky to me. Like she said, Hey, I want to write a book about making my life better so I’m going to make my life better and write a book. It just felt so meta, you know what I mean? I don’t mean in any way to imply David was disingenuous; on the contrary, I thought she was very honest about her past and present. I couldn’t shake the “writing about writing” navel-gazing feeling I got, though. I’m guess I’m also jaded by reading Cathy Alter’s Up For Renewal, which is a memoir detailing a divorcee’s quest to improve her life in a year based on the advice in magazines. Same premise, different writer.

And yes, David’s moral is the same (and a good one): no one can love you until you love yourself. You must improve who you are -- spirtually, emotionally, physically — until you’re putting your best self out there. When you do that -- when you’re truly happy in your own skin — you’ll find whatever it is you’re seeking. I get that -- and I agree. Though it bears repeating, we’ve sung this song before.

What sets Falling For Me apart from other memoirs, though, is the way Brown’s advice -- seen through David’s lens — got me thinking about myself. We’ve all heard the ol’ “If you haven’t worn it in a year, throw it out” sentiment regarding our bursting wardrobes, but the way David actually does just that got me considering my own cluttered closet. The book also served as a reminder for me to surround myself with positive people and things that make me happy. When David embarks on a challenge to keep from judging others, gossiping or complaining, I thought about the many times a day I do those things myself.

Fans of memoirs, motivational reading and David herself will find Falling For Me to be an interesting read full of funny anecdotes with a very human narrator. While I wish the genre had felt a little more original, I think David’s contribution to the world of self-exploration is a worthy one.

[LiteraryMarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most thirty-something single women, Anna David wondered if she'd made the right choices thus far in life. Yes, she was successful. Yes, she'd written many articles on sex and dating. But now she is questioning whether putting her work life first was smart. Where are the 2.5 kids and husband? It was like "coming out of a blackout and discovering that you're in the process of losing a game of musical chairs--one you didn't even know you wanted to play." Well said, Anna.

Then Anna discovers Helen Gurley Brown's 1960s book, Sex and The Single Girl. An idea hits. Anna devotes to living Gurley Brown's way and trying every suggestion in the book for becoming more feminine and meeting men. So begins Anna's empowering yearlong journey to Gurley-afying herself.

Falling for Me started off strong. I was rooting for Anna to explore life by revamping her apartment, learning how to cook, to start online dating, etc. I eagerly continued reading to see how a book that originally came out in 1962 would dramatically change a woman's approach to dating, mating, and living. But then I kind of lost interest toward the end. I most relate it to Eat, Pray, Love. While it was uplifting and motivational, it was missing the element of surprise. If you're at this point in your life, then this book is great. You may even challenge yourself to Gurley-afy too. I recommend it for those that liked Eat, Pray, Love. But if you are past this point in life or not quite there yet, it may be a drawn out read. I did walk away with a revelation though: If I were me, I'd fall for me too.

Literary Marie of Precision Reviews

[Marc Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a rare writer who can take you inside their head, show you their worst secrets, and make you laugh in the same paragraph. Anna David becomes one of those wonderful rarities in “Falling for Me”. She begins this memoir with the risky admission that her personal life is a mess. This is risky because she’s known as a “relationship expert”, and yet she’s a huge basket case when it comes to adult relationships. Then a chance discovery in a New York City book store sends her on a quest.
The discovery is “Sex and the Single Girl”, the landmark feminist manifesto by Helen Gurley Brown. Anna David decides to follow Brown’s guidance as a book idea, and it leads to a series of life-changing adventures. Through these various challenges she makes important personal observations that allow her to grow. David’s skilled narrative allows the reader to watch as she endures a Thanksgiving dinner she’s cooked herself (a first), hanging curtains, learning to apply makeup, wind-surfing, taking a French class, and other challenges. These challenges shadow the underlying mission of meeting a mate. Almost every chapter comes back to her hunt for the acceptable man. The irony is that with each project she grows as a woman, and she always seems to date the guy who’s one “Anna-Version” behind.
“Falling for Me” is a worthwhile read for women and men as the lessons within are painfully universal. It was great to see Anna David’s writing achieve this level of growth, even as a hardcore fan I was pleasantly surprised with both her candor, and her wit. I’m sure this was a painful book to write, but it is such an impressive read.

[Ami · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for a good memoir. Especially one that's marketed as a 'year in the life' sort of thing. If you've eaten locally, grew your own food, tried to be happy, homeschooled, or lived Biblically for 365 days? I've probably read your book. All of this is why I picked up "Falling for Me," I figured it was right up my alley: a single woman decides to follow the advice of a book for a year in her quest to find Mr. Right.
There were certain parts that I truly enjoyed. I liked reading about the improvements she made to her life: roller-blading, traveling, decorating her apartment, and learning to cook. In these segments the author's writing rang clear and made for good reading.
However, whenever the author began talking about actually dating and meeting men, I become so annoyed with her, that I couldn't enjoy the book at all. Since the entire premise of the novel was to meet the right man, there were many of these aggravating segments, and I was relieved when the book ended.
Overall, I don't recommend the book.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Debated between 1 and 2 stars, feeling generous I guess. Much of my annoyance stemmed from Amazon having this listed as a travel memoir. Other than a handful of pages about a brief trip to Seville, and maybe 2 pages about windsurfing in the DR, it had nothing to do with traveling - so if that is what you are looking for, pass it by. But it wasn't the author's fault it was miscategorized. It was basically a few hundred pages of the author trying to find a boyfriend by following advice from a book published in the 1960s. SPOILER ALERT........


......it didn't work out so well (so far as finding a BF). Pretty boring overall, left me feeling a bit sorry for her by the end (and not because *sob sob* she hadn't found a man by the last page)

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learning to cook, traveling to Seville, falling in love... what's not to like? A few things, it turns out. I love a memoir of a woman trying to improve her life and fall in love, so no problem there. But for some insane reason, Anna David decides to base her self-improvement plan on Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown. Why any woman in the year 2011 would even want to read an self-help book from 50 years ago, much less spend a year actually trying to follow it, I cannot imagine. I found the whole thing to be contrived, unbelievable and stupid. Sorry. But otherwise, I liked it!

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. I thought it was very interesting how Anna David went on this year long journey to find herself. I thought some of the stories were pretty funny. I definitely identified with her in many ways and yet, thought it was interested how different we all are and how we all have our own insecurities. A fast read, cute and interesting. Something light hearted and upbeat. I wouldnt buy it, but check it out from the library or borrow it from a friend, you wont be disappointed!

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

...I think the problem was I just didn't like the person, so caring about her story was really hard. I didn't find she had any redeeming qualities. How she got a book deal is beyond me.

[Alycia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for memoirs, project books, etc but this one didn't quite do it for me.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I try not to read other reviews of books I’ve accepted for review before I read the book myself. In this case, I stumbled upon a review for Falling For Me and before I shut the browser window, I saw that the author of that review didn’t like the book. As someone who’s not always a fan of confessional-type memoirs (I’m looking at YOU, Eat Pray Love), I figured I probably wouldn’t like Falling For Me either and I sort of alternately dreaded and put off getting to it.

I am rarely so pleased to be wrong.

Falling For Me is the kind of book I wish I’d had to read when I was in my late twenties, suddenly out of a relationship and living on my own for the first time. I made a conscious decision to buy things for myself, like matching plates, instead of waiting to “qualify” to own them by getting married and having a wedding registry. In Falling For Me, Anna David takes that attitude about six steps further. She does all sorts of things that frighten her or that she secretly thinks she doesn’t deserve because she hasn’t “earned” them by having a relationship last longer than a year. She’s funny, inspiring, and incredibly brave – something she’s surprised to discover about herself towards the end of the book. I cheered her on, and this old married lady even learned a few things about herself from Anna’s experiences. More than that, her openness helped me reconcile some of the things about my previous relationships that still bothered me, even after “officially” moving on.

Her writing reminds me of a cross between the common sense found in The Go-Girl Guide, the self-deprecation and honesty of Another Bad Dog Book, and really smart confessional memoirs combined with my favorite Year-Of books like The Happiness Project. I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s ever felt like she’s a little bit off-schedule compared to “everyone else” around her. To any woman who’s still using the sheets, curtains or towels they got when they moved away to college. To any woman who gets her furniture from IKEA when she’d rather be buying Gotham Cabinet Craft because she figures she’ll have to compromise on it later when she meets The One. To any woman who is afraid that she doesn’t have a man because she can’t cook, who secretly wants to cook just for herself anyway.

I’ve always loved the poem “Once in a While“, particularly the lines

so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.

Instead of the original ending, I think Anna’s would go “with every brave step, you learn.”

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anna is a single woman in her 30’s who has recently come to see her life as lacking in some pretty significant ways. Though she is a successful freelance writer and has overcome her drug addiction and alcoholism years before, she does not feel successful when she compares herself to other women her age. After having an instant, soul-shaking attraction to a married artist and father and spending the next several months lamenting the fact that she could never be with him, she decides that she must get serious in her attempts to meet a man and decides to take some advice from a 50-year-old book in order to make her life more fulfilling. Falling for Me recounts Anna’s year spent with Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl and her attempts to find a husband with it.

I originally saw this book when I was working at a bookstore in college, and something about it made me envision a fiercely independent woman going on a soul-searching journey to better herself. I absolutely loved Noelle Hancock’s My Year with Eleanor, and I figured the two books would be similar. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Anna does not embark on this journey for herself, she does it for a man.

I found Anna pretty easy to relate to at first, as we both have had similar (horrible) relationships with men and felt distant from our family growing up. However, for a woman who has spent a significant portion of her life alone, she is remarkably dependent on other people. To learn to cook, she must take a class. To add some pizazz to her apartment, she must hire a professional interior designer. When she travels to another country, she must do it through a friend’s apartment share program and spends her time tagging along with an interpreter and her friends and not experiencing anything on her own.

In short, this memoir was incredibly cheesy and uninspiring, Anna is no one’s idea of a heroine, and the book was more than a bit insulting for other single women out there. I would not recommend.

[Rachel Kramer Bussel · Rating 5 out of 5]

After meeting a married man who she connects with but can't have, Anna David decides to shake up her life via advice from famed pioneering Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, following as much of her retro advice as she can. Much of Brown's advice seems truly dated, but David manages apply it to very modern phenomenon like online dating. Any woman who's participated in online dating and experienced the hell that is the wishy-washy dater (or really any kind) will appreciate her adventures meeting men there.

But this is more than a book about a single woman's relationship travails. David explores what has made her happy, and unhappy, in the past, and seeks to recreate the former and change the latter. She travels to Seville, a city she remembers fondly from her college days, and while at first she despairs that it isn't the same as she recalled, but proceeds to stick it out and marvel in simple things, like finding an out of the way gym.

I liked the times when David disagreed with Brown, managing to still create an homage to the author while putting her foot down about just how far she'll go. It's not just about how she redecorated or who she dated, as why. As her motivation shifts from self-improvement in the name of dating to simply enjoying her new experiences without a big goal or lesson in mind, David becomes more relatable. She isn't trying to claim that her way (or Gurley's) is the only way, but simply one way she fell for, and learned about, herself. An entertaining memoir that will be especially of interest to people in their thirties (or older) who feel like they're "too old" to change their lives.

[TinaB · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know that problem you find in many memoirs- the one that says I have a great story but I don't know how to write? Well I can tell you for sure that's not the case in Anna David's well-written take on changing one's life. A funny, quirky fast read that focuses on Anna's recovery from a romance involving a married man. Down in the dumps and questioning life, Anna stumbles upon Helen Gurley Brown's, Sex and the Single Girl and decides to follow its step-by-step process of transforming her life. While Anna doesn't go straight up hippie chick, she does discover the importance of self-worth through cooking lessons, spa-treatments, changing her wardrobe, traveling and a long list of fancy things that doesn't seem to effect her pocket book.


Reading through the authors ups and downs and especially the parts on diet and fashion, erased the feeling of reading a memoir and brought a quality to the book that made Anna seem like a friend and a girl who I would have coffee with. She cracked me up, at times I wanted to make her a button that said "You are Worth It" or give her high fives of motivation. At other times I shook my head, but ultimately I just wanted to give Anna a hug and point her to a rainbow at the end of the journey......

I highly doubt there is a woman out there who hasn't dealt with some form of a self-issue and trying to reinvent oneself, the struggle of finding that one thing is a common denominator among us women, which made Anna's memoir all that more relatable.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to give autobiographies/biographies anything less than 3 stars because I feel like it isn't fair to be judging someone's life, especially when the writing was actually pretty good. That being said, I was constantly annoyed with the author here. In addition, the title is a complete misnomer; in my 302 page book, she spends less than 20 pages in Seville, and loses eveything she learned there in the epilogue that follows the chapter that focused on Seville (and Morocco). The curtains and learning to cook? Each are addressed in one chapter. I think she should have left off the second clause of the title.
Also, so much time is spent whining and complaining that I didn't even want to finish the book. And while the idea of following Helen Gurley Brown's rules intrigured me while reading the back cover, seeing them put in practice made me wince. Some of it was just too 1950s for me, and I am as romantic a fool as anyone.
I get that by learning to love yourself you will be more able to find love in other places, but I swear this book felt more like a therapy session than anything else. In fact, it's almost like the author was telling her therapist about her adventure, and decided to write it down and publish it.
To sum it up, I generally like books of self-discovery, but this one just didn't do it for me. Granted, some of this may be the bitter side of me who was hoping for more time in Seville, but I think it was more than that.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anna's desire to change her life stars with a very mild, but ill-fated affair with a married man. Suddenly panicking about where she is in life, she decides to start taking advice from from a 1960s book.

At first I didn't want to like Anna. For all her claims that she wanted to learn to let go and enjoy life, most of the book seemed to be about wanting to find a boyfriend. But after awhile I had to really ask myself - is it wrong to be on the search for a relationship? Is it wrong to take antiquated, kind of sexist advice, if it genuinely helps you and makes you happy? I didn't really like everything Anna had to say, but her honesty was a bit refreshing at a time when everyone is so concerned about saying and writing the "right" things.

At times it went slowly, and I can't claim it's lifechanging (though I will admit I came home and cleaned out my closet after I got halfway through). I can also see why some people were annoyed. But overall I think it was a nice little story of a woman who wanted to change herself, and actually did, and when I finished I felt like Anna was kind of a friend. Sure, sometimes that frustrating friend who wants to cry over barely-realized relationships and borrow your dog to man-hunt and says things you don't always agree with, but who is mostly likable.

[Anthony Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

)
Anna David is my favorite author. I loved her other books, Party Girl, Bought, and Reality Matters

I had to take a 3 hour train ride today, and I read the entire book , Falling For Me.
Unlike Anna's other books which were sexy, fun , and exciting to read. This book was a personal memoir.
Anna was willing to share so much of personal life with us, the reader in this book that I could not put it down.

I know that Anna is a relationship expert, and thanks to Social Networking, I know that she is also Single.
I felt it was none of my business why she was not married.
But Anna wrote this book and explained all of this, her pain, her struggles, her mistakes. Then finally this life changing decision to follow Helen Gurley Brown's example to live her life by.

Anna always cuts through the fog of romance to answer the basic questions. We cannot be in love with a partner unless we fall in love with ourselves.

Falling For Me is speaking to me on a deeply personal level. I am age 46, single, with a fear of dying alone. I have difficulty leaving my own comfort zone. I am going to try to learn from Anna's book, Falling For Me to help make vital changes in my own personal life.

This book had a deep effect on me. I highly recommend it.

Anthony
NYC

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads First Reads. I wasn't expecting much, but something about this book just hit certain chords with me. The ideas of self improvement that are presented in this book would seem absolutely ridiculous, what with the fact that they've been taken from a book written by the editor of a fashion magazine in the 60s. However, Anna David somehow manages to take this archaic and chauvinistic "improvements" and put a positive, hilarious, and meaningful spin on them. But in the end, the whole idea that the most important person to try to impress gives meaning to this hilarious tale of a woman's mission to get over the one's that shouldn't be, to catch "the one" and to face one's fears.

I think I've already recommended this book to everyone I know, but allow me to reiterate. I recommend this book to anyone who feels like there might be something that they can do to make themselves better. I recommend it to people who want to be happier with themselves. I recommend this book to people who might just simply need a laugh. It is inspiring and definitely worth the read, even if memoirs or project blogs aren't really your kind of thing.

[Toni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never been a fan of Cosmopolitan magazine. Even when I was a teenager and young adult I thought it placed too much emphasis on sex and getting and keeping a man. Its most famous editor, Helen Gurley Brown, on the other hand is fascinating. She believed early on (before feminism and the free love movement) that women need to own their power and that includes their sexuality and their financial lives with or without a man. She used this philosophy to turn around the failing Cosmo magazine and wrote a bestselling book Sex and the Single Girl, in 1962, before the women's rights movement gained popularity.


Anna David, like a lot of women, reached an age where she realized that the life she created for herself didn't resemble the one she thought she would have. Fresh out of a relationship that was all wrong for her, she stumbled across Helen Gurley Brown's book and wondered if she could apply advice given in the early sixties to her life in the new millennium. From decorating her apartment, to honing her cooking skills, to broadening her dating horizons, David shows that becoming your own woman and not waiting on a man to provide for you is timeless advice.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite recent new genres I’ve discovered is a genre I call Challenge Books. In this genre, authors set a goal to do a difficult task and then write a book about their attempt to achieve the goal.

Falling for Me is one of these books. Anna David is nearing forty and is dismayed to find that she is child-less and husband-less. After yet another hopeless and doomed love affair, David decides to use a book from 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl, as her template to finding a new life.

David does. She learns to cook, seeks out advice on wearing makeup, redecorates her apartment, and initiates a fitness program. She doesn’t find a husband and she doesn’t have a child by the end of the book, but she is in a saner, happier place. Though I must say that my fifty-four-year-old self spent most of the book shocked by the casual way David threw herself in quick and obviously doomed relationships, it was a good read. Thank you to the publisher for sending me this advanced reader copy.

[Julia Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Falling For Me is one of those books that get you excited about really looking at your life and asking yourself, "Is my life the way I expected it to be? Am I really happy or have I just resigned to the way the chips have fallen into place?" And then there's probably the most terrifying question: "Am I ever going to find my one true love or is it time to put romantic ideals aside and face up to hard facts, like the ticking of a woman's biological clock and how to find a guy to settle down with and have a family. To answer these questions for herself, Anna David takes a daring path in following the guidelines of Helen Gurley's 60s bestseller "Sex and The Single Girl." What she finds is that maybe the women of today need to look at the past to define their present and to figure out the slippery balance between independence, career, love and family. I very much appreciated Anna's insights, humor, and honesty, and above all, her journey inspired me to evaluate my life as it is and embark on my own adventure of self-discovery.

[Lissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is okay but dull. Anna David finds a book written in the 1960s - Sex and the Single Girl - after a failed emotional relationship with a married man. She decides to pattern her life after the book, hoping that it will lead her to Mr. Right. Along the way, she takes some risks and learns some stuff. Yeah, really, it's that cliche.

I never connected with Anna; she seemed rather self-absorbed and superficial, and sometimes over-the-top. As I read the book, I just wanted to shake some sense in her. She's unhappy because she doesn't have everything she wants in her life (in this case, a man) - but who really has EVERYTHING they want in life? I know that I certainly don't, but I'm happy, and I'm not flying to LA or Spain or Morocco.

I really forced myself to finish this book, because the more of it I read, the less I found myself interested in what happened. I bought this book because of the high reviews on Amazon; I guess I should have looked at the reviews here before completing my purchase.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on hello, chelly.

***

The good: The author has a great writing voice. I could hear it so clearly in my head and I found myself laughing half the time at the things she puts herself through to find a guy. But she never comes across to me as desperate. She's an intelligent woman who's feeling a little lost and who's hardly ventured out of her comfort zone. (Something I can relate to!). So hearing her adventures into online and speed dating, trying to new things and traveling was so interesting and fun to read about.

(No) reservations: I don't have anything bad to say. If I had to pick something super nit-picky, I'd say sometimes the way she jumps from topic to topic can be kind of jarring.

Do I recommend?: YES! Especially if you are a single gal like me.

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as part of Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. The author, Anna David, finding herself dissatisfied with her life as a single thritysomething embarks on a self-imposed challege to live according to the advice in the 1960s book "Sex and the Single Girl."

I was intrigued by this premise as it seemed like it might be more hilarious than helpful, but I was wrong in that assumption. Turns out the book has some excellent advice -- some leading to positive outcomes and others not so much. In any case the book presents an interesting journey. Unfortunately I found the overall book a bit uneven -- parts I couldn't stop reading and other parts bored me, but overall it was a good story with some good lessons for those women out there waiting for their life to begin when they find a man.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every book Anna writes I am more impressed with her skills as a writer and her ability to connect with the audience of whom she writes for. Falling for Me, was an incredibly well written book, as Anna's journey to self improvement and self understanding, leads her through many interesting experiences. It takes a courage to write a Memoir like this that is so raw. Anna leads us through her journey from tears to laughter, from her darkest times to her triumps. This book is about decisions, both good and bad. Hilarious dating site experiences, speed dating, steamy romances, and conquering fears. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever doubted themselves as it was quite inspirational to read. Also, don't let the title fool you, men can learn a lot from this book as well, I know I did.

[Lisa A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, what can I say? It started off nicely, before I realized how neurotic Anna is and instantly became annoyed and impatient.
Seems to me she doesn't/didn't want to help herself and like so many others, just sat around wallowing in her sad self-pity hoping someone of the opposite sex would take her out of it. Pathetic.

Though she gets help from her therapist (who dispenses some fine, insightful advice we could all use) and though she does decide on her own to try new things despite her insecurities, I felt she never really learned much. This could be a good thing, a realistic approach that change and progress takes time for all of us, but I wanted more.

And I feel she could have done a better job with the writing during her travel to Seville. I almost felt like I was there with her, but not quite. In the end, did she really fall for herself? I need more convincing.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This mash-up of Eat, Pray, Love and Julie and Julia is a light fun read that kept me interested. Anna is a freelancer, living in New York and she has her heart broken by an unavailable married man. For whatever reason, she turns to Sex and the Single Girl for help and decides to live her life the Helen Gurly Brown way. The next year is full of taking chances, making dates, learning to cook and decorate and a unplanned trip to Spain. The end point is somewhat predictable by the title, but the journey there is pretty fun. Anna's writing style is snarky and readers will relate to her dating trials. Overall this is a light, quick read that is perfect for summer, and those single girls who want to celebrate their singleness.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was interesting to watch Anna grow as a person and push herself to live life to the fullest as a single girl and overcome her fears. I found the book inspirational in a way-since I am at a similar point in my life as Anna. I feel like a sequel to the memoir is needed or at least an idea of what happened to Anna relationship-wise. Did she ever find Mr. Right? Is she still dating? If so, is she dating differently and looking at the opposite sex from a different perspective after her experiment. How did this change her relationships with men after the experiment? A lot of unanswered questions at the end of the memoir- which made me give the book three stars- which in mind is a mediocre read.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirty-something and single, Anna David, like most women of the same age, wonders if she has made the right life choices, particularly when it comes to her personal life . She comes across a copy of Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan magazine. Sex was written in the 60s and David connected with it’s message of self-empowerment combined with femininity. Falling For Me is her journey to discover that ultimately she only has to fall in love with herself. An enjoyable read and I wish this had been written when I was single. It is interesting that so many of us women, including David herself, worry and fret so much about relationships with the opposite sex (or lack thereof) when really we need to learn to feel good about who we are.