The Hypothetical Girl: Stories

by Elizabeth Cohen

Love meets technology with a dash of quirk in this collection of highly original short stories
 
An aspiring actress meets an Icelandic Yak farmer on a matchmaking Web site. An online forum for cancer support turns into a love triangle for an English professor, a Canadian fisherman, and an elementary school teacher living in Japan. A deer and a polar bear flirt via Skype. In The Hypothetical Girl a menagerie of characters graze and jockey, play and hook up in the online dating world with mixed and sometimes dark results. Flirting and communicating in chat rooms, through texts, e-mails, and IMs, they grope their way through a virtual maze of potential mates, falling in and out of what they think and hope may be true love.
 
With levity and high style, Cohen takes her readers into a world where screen and keyboard meet the heart, with consequences that range from wonderful to weird. The Hypothetical Girl captures all the mystery, misery, and magic of the eternal search for human connection.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Humor, Literature, Literary Fiction

251 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 6, 2013

About the author

Elizabeth Cohen is an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Plattsburgh, where she serves as the fiction editor for the Saranac Review. Her memoir, The Family on Beartown Road (Random House, 2003), was a New York Times Notable Book, and her articles, stories, and poetry have appeared in SELF, MORE, Newsweek, People, New York Times Magazine, Salon, Tablet, and the Yale Review, among other publications.

She lives in Plattsburgh, New York, with her daughter, Ava and way, way too many cats.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Individually, the stories are wonderful, charming, modern and speak to the way we live and love in this day and age. As a whole, the collection starts to feel repetitive. There is too much similarity among the stories and toward the end, they become indistinct.

Still, individually, great, great stuff here. I like this writer's work.

[Jan Moens · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[Natania · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a marvelous book: poignant, witty, tender, humane, honest, and very playful and clever with language and literary references. Though all the stories deal with internet relationships of one kind of another, they are in no way trivial; the internet becomes a trope for deep romantic longing and wishful thinking. Who doesn't know these feelings, and who, by now, doesn't know the crazy fascination exerted by social media, the way they reach tentacles into our everyday lives and psyches? The Hypothetical Girl captures this as nothing else I've read does. There was not one dilemma in all the stories that didn't come thoroughly alive for me; I empathized intensely with these characters even as I stood back to admire Cohen's way with words and phrases, the homely Yiddish humor, the good ear for how people talk to themselves and one another, and Cohen's way with extended metaphors. A special book, and one for our moment.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of short stories starts off with several about online dating. They are actually a bit formulaic and repetitive. Towards the end, the stories morph away from strictly online dating, but everything is still focused on relationships, or mainly the dissolution of them, and I found the gimmicks tiresome. On top of that, soul patches are described with affection TWICE. So gotta go..

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, this collection of stories is just light enough to keep you skimming across the page (I read it in a day) but with just enough depth to make you pause at times to think.

I liked the theme of modern romance, and that most of the characters were middle aged. It added depth, but also a lot of unexpected heaviness. Cohen is a great writer, and "Love Quiz" will haunt me for a very long time.

[Julia Buckley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written stories that explore our obsession with love via the Internet. Clever, sometimes funny, often sad.

[Bookish Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finding love has always been fraught with challenges, and in our modern age of on-line dating it’s become even more perplexing. In Elizabeth Cohen’s collection of short stories in her latest release The Hypothetical Girl people turn to the Internet to find true love.

Well, replacing face to face contact with digital dating doesn’t exactly make things easier in the romance department. In fact, it often makes things harder and hearts do get broken as Cohen conveys in this mostly satisfying book.

In “People Who Live Far, Far Away” a man and a woman meet on Catch.com (get it?). He pretends to be yak farmer and she pretends to be a poet, model and actress whose sole film credit is her legs the opening credits of a Jim Carrey movie. Are these two trying to “Catfish” each other or do they think they have to make up on-line personalities because they don’t think they are worthy of love the way they truly are?

“Death by Free Verse” a couple bonds and flirts through sassy limericks, but things just might go awry when the lady half of this would-be couple sends the man a heartfelt love poem.

Love triangles hurt on-line as much as they do in real life, and in “The Opposite of Love” one woman stricken with breast cancer finds herself being edged-out of a support group on-line forum as two others forum residents bond, meet and fall in love. However, love doesn’t always run smoothly and can end in sorrow.

In “The Man Who Made Whirligigs” on-line flirtation leads to a one-night stand, which then leads to being stood up at a truck stop. Hmm, sounds like a couple who should meet again on “Jerry Springer.”

And “Love Quiz” examines those hideous quizzes we find in “Cosmo” magazine that we take against our better judgment as if they are a true reflection of who were are and what we are looking for when it comes to romance.

Some stories don’t always work. I found the opening story, “Animal Story” a bit too slow-paced, which could have kept me from reading further. And the final story “Stupid Humans”, which is a about a polar bear and deer falling in love via Skype just seemed out of place in a collection of stories filled with flawed humans. Or maybe I just wasn’t able to suspend my imagination that day?

Still, I did enjoy the book. Cohen is able to write characters that are fully-dimensional and stories that ring true even if you’ve never tried on-line dating. The Hypothetical Girl examines themes of romance, lust, heartbreak, delusion, connections, flirtation and yes, hoping that there truly is that soul mate out there…somewhere.

Originally Published at the Book Self Blog:
http://thebookselfblog.wordpress.com/...

[Calamus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by Elizabeth Cohen explores online dating – from the hook-up sites to the more serious find-a-spouse sites. Each story introduces a new character searching for love or companionship via online dating sites with very mixed results. “People Who Live Far, Far Away” focuses on online dating as a means to escape a less than ideal real life. In “Love, Really,” the language describing the rush of emotions and giddiness of a new relationship is framed by two middle-aged lovers who believe they are perhaps too old for such over the top feelings. “Heart Food” is my favorite story in this collection. It has a fairytale feel in that the protagonist’s heart does much of the talking. “Stupid Humans” is a departure from the rest of the stories simply because we are no longer reading about humans but about a deer and polar bear’s relationship. Nevertheless the feelings are all very real and pose the same identifiers as the humans in the other stories. In fact, I personally think the feelings and reactions described by the deer are even more realistic than some of the human stories.

While the formula used in each story is rather redundant (introduce lonely woman, woman makes connections, woman is let down), the ways in which Cohen identifies the nuances of communicating online (i.e. the difficulty in perceiving tone from a text message) and describes the tenuous feelings her characters develop are admirable and enjoyable. The names of the various online dating sites, such as “Loveforreals.com”, are just fantastic and Cohen clearly had fun thinking up the endless kitschy and clichéd names. Splashes of beautiful language are found throughout that I wish appeared more often—“…just after she roused herself from sleep, shaking all the loose chips of dream off her coat…” (from “Stupid Humans”).

The Hypothetical Girl is an intriguing read although certainly disheartening as the women search for connections on the Internet. A story or two with a victory at the end (triumphant woman alone or in a relationship) would have served to balance out this collection. However, Cohen’s strong writing pushes you through to the next story and I certainly will be exploring her other works. The Hypothetical Girl is scheduled for release August 6, 2013. Visit www.thehypotheticalgirl.com for more information about this and other publications by Elizabeth Cohen.

[Nancy McKibben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hypothetical Girl
By Elizabeth Cohen

This book consists of a series of short stories about online dating, which is a mystery to me, since I’m married and predate it. The first one, “Animal Dancing”, is charming - a woman’s fond hopes that this mysterious other with whom she has communicated will prove to be exactly what he seems online. Will an in-person encounter wreck the illusions of both parties?

Other stories are darker, but they bump along like real life - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Since online relationships are an unexplored country to me, I found the stories interesting for that alone, but I imagine that those for whom the computer is a necessary component of romance will also find something to like. In “Dog People,” the heroine Clarissa confides to her friend that she met an interesting man yesterday in the park.

'Oh, wow,' Molly wrote back. 'A real-world man. You don’t hear much about that anymore.'

'No,' Clarissa agreed. 'You don’t.'

They stopped typing for a moment, each one thinking about what the implications of real world men might be.

'Flesh and bone could have some pluses,' Molly said, 'like none of that awful confusion in e-mails, not getting the tone right.'

'True, and no chance he would just vanish one day from your inbox. Like if he met someone else and just poof!'

And the author writes well. Listen to the beginning of one of the stories:

It was the time of year when the helicopter seeds twirled down onto the sidewalks like girls showing off at a dance, when the bee balm bushes wore their best purple frocks and the whole world seemed, to Chloe, tricked out for love. Contrary to popular sentiment, Shakespeare and all that, she thought autumn, not spring, was love season. Everything was overripe, lustily clad, luscious beyond luscious, ready to go.

I was ready for love after that paragraph. Still, this is not a squishy and sentimental book, but a thoughtful and funny look at contemporary love.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hypothetical Girl by Elizabeth Cohen is a collection of short stories of love, identity and internet.

Each character is looking for love online, usually a transformative love that will solve everything and bring brilliance to the mundane. They each want so very desperately to meet and connect with someone else online.

There’s a hint of the bizarre running through the book, but isn’t meeting and falling in love kind of bizarre anyway? Cohen’s characters pretend to be Icelandic yak farmers while living a perfectly average life, or pretend a normal life over unpleasant circumstances. They pretend, through the magic of online profiles and early conversations, to be just slightly better than they are. Each story plays on the themes of misrepresenting oneself and of discovering something unexpected. I don’t want to recap any one of the short stories because I think a summary of events would miss the real point.

Full Review at The Hypothetical Girl :: Simpson's Paradox

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was like talking to your best friend the day after a first date and having just the perfect words to describe what happened. You know, we've all been there. Had a lousy date, wanted to find a silver lining out of what was a ridiculous way to have spent an evening and always wanted to give your best friend something to laugh about. I wish Cohen could have scripted some of my post date mortems. Cohen's stories made me reflect (and cringe) about some of my past dates and appreciate the good ones. But it's more than just stories about dating, it's about how we perceive ourselves, others and how we want to make our way in the world. It's the kind of book that keeps you honest about your past and your future choices.

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I simply did not like the writing style of this compilation and was not really impressed with the theme of them as well.

It was funny at times and some of the stories actually had meaning such as "The Hypothetical Girl" and "Love Quiz." Another point is that the stories went from really mundane to really strange in a manic way which was not collective. The latter half of the book was definitely more enjoyable.

There were some great word choices overall which was fantastic but other than that I can't really give this a good recommendation and if I did it would be for single stories and not the group as a whole.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before we begin, I would like to note: This is my first time reviewing a short story collection! How exciting!

The Hypothetical Girl is a collection of stories by Elizabeth Cohen that center around the idea of online dating. The characters are undeniably realistic. They change their profiles to make themselves seem more interesting, they day dream about this date finally being the one, and most of all they—just like those of us here in the “real world”—are all searching for true connection to another human being. Read the full review here: http://www.thewhynottblog.com/book-re...

[Emma Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something for everyone in this short story collection centering on on-line dating. Obviously, some stories resonated more than others, but there was enough in every one to make them enjoyable. Anyone who has ever dated, whether online or otherwise, will find this collection amusing. Cohen’s tone is perfect and made it all the more enjoyable.

Like most short story collections, this book is perfect for dipping in and out of. Each story can be read in one sitting, making it the ideal book to keep with you. I recommend this to anyone who likes short stories, humour and modern day love.

I received an avanced reader copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Torunn Lyngroth Aberle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is book is wonderfully written, with characters who are yearning to love, and be loved. In some of the short stories the characters, some of whom are animals, are being kept apart, because of the many odd and often unstated rules that are applied to potential romantic and sexual relationships. It is a little bit like a modern "Pride and Prejudice." Cohen's stories are beautiful, haunting, honest, and, of course, often sad, given the fact that these are love stories.

I found myself getting very concerned for the well-being of some of the female characters, turning the pages faster and faster to see how their on-line encounters would turn out!

[John Roche · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the hands of Elizabeth Cohen, these short stories capture both the world we live in and the virtual world we dwell in, particularly regarding the search for love and identity online. I ended up falling in love---with Cohen's richly drawn characters, her unique, spot-on voice and these very entertaining plot lines that, for better or worse, hold a mirror up to who we are and who we present ourselves to be. A great read.

[Emma Kaufmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is brilliant. How can she write about mostly badly ending internet romances with such humor and insight and make it all seem so fresh and appealing? It does make me thank God I am married and don't have to navigate amongst the goatee wearing sharks and three legged octopi that makes up the dating pool.....Highly recommended

[Lizzy Wizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Just then Alana realized something; a fact settled in her heart like windswept soil. She realized she would keep Max just like this, as long as she could and possibly forever. Real Max could potentially lie, abuse, or use her, cheat, steal, behave meanly. He could break her heart, leave sticky piles of socks around... forget her birthday. So she would keep him right there on the screen, at arm’s length, a click away, neither dismiss him nor invite him in closer. Max could live in her computer, under circuits and a motherboard and back inside the walls of her house, and in the electricity of the greater world, buzzing around in an infinitely coded fashion.”

I found this collection of short stories to be an interesting look into the many ways that digital culture influences our expectations of romance and love. Although the ending felt kind of out of place and weak, I think it deserves a higher rating than where it’s at currently on Goodreads.

[Cat. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is going in the "unfinished" pile because there is no way I'm going to finish it. My Nook died last month, and I'm not going to get a chance to deal with it for the foreseeable future.

Good stories. A bit odd, but definitely fun.

[Tan Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bite-sized short stories about modern dating told in a quirky manner. Yes after a while some of them get a bit repetitive, despite how their outcomes differ. Thankfully the quirkiness manages to keep the reader interested enough.

[Larissa Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay yes, these stories are all similar and revolve around online dating but i loved them and I loved the writings. The last one was weird but here we are. It’s short and an easy read but I love short stories so maybe that’s why I enjoyed this one more than apparently everyone else.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Right book right time

[Katie DeVito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love love! These stories were spectacular and an easy read

[Kaitlyn Affuso · Rating 4 out of 5]

In recent years, there’s been the argument of print books vs. e-books. Those who embrace technology go toward e-readers, complementing its convenience and sleek structure. “But books are so much cozier,” print-lovers say. Well, in my hand, I held a supporting factor of both: The Hypothetical Girl by Elizabeth Cohen.
Its physical copy is small, hand-held and packed with Internet love stories gone wrong. This topic is blowing up recently. There is a matchmaker site for every kind of person, and there are now the stories of website love gone wrong, such as MTV’s Catfish, a show of the lies that reside in online relationships.
Cohen’s small-sized, 200 plus paged book is like a girl’s best friend, cuddling up at any time of day to tell another crazy love story that shifts from mysterious passion, to lies and mystery. Whether it is about two dog lovers in a relationship, a girl who believes she is disappearing, two people who flirt through limerick poems or even the long distance relationship between a deer and a polar bear, Cohen is sure to cover many basis of love stories and the crisis that can occur.
The short stories are make this a refreshing and relaxing read, allowing the reader to pick this up anywhere, whether it’s a before-bed read, or on the subway coming home from work, which is why this cozy book is a prime example of comfort in a print or e-book edition.
This book not only is entertaining with its choice of topic, but also how it is written. It is clear that the author is a poet because sentences, descriptions and stories flow from one to the next so effortlessly, as a stream flows to a river. It makes even the most heartbreaking stories, tragically beautiful.
“’Well hello there,’ she’d write, night after night, answering the clutter of seeker in her in-box. ‘Do you like hiking? Sushi? Do you closely follow the stages of the moon?’” This quote from the first story “Animal Dancing” glamorizes the idea of Internet dating within itself. Cohen does this throughout, dressing up such usual images or situations with utter beauty and even humor, like describing a man as “handsome, without being a Ken doll.”
This poetic flow sets The Hypothetical Girl with a uniquely delicious and irresistible tone, making this book tempt readers when they try to put it down.
More of the author shines through in the book, due to the repletion of minor details, such as Jewish culture, love of dogs and passion for writing and poetry. A re-read of the book will help tell if these themes are a pro or con, but at times, its repetition was a draw out of the current story.
“Limerance” was a short story when the two people often conversed in limericks, which was creative and fun. “Dog People” were two people who met in a dog park, and was a beautiful heartbreaking story of two people who share their love in the man’s mountain home with their dogs. The list goes on and on.
Cohen’s newest book to be released in August, is a refreshing read, a palette cleanser, you might say, and will go great with a summer tanning session hand-in-hand with a daiquiri, or a night in with a cup of tea. Whatever the location, beverage, or weather, The Hypothetical Girl will do all but disappoint.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of fifteen short stories (which I heard about via Goodreads then saw at the library) has been good jury duty reading, by which I mean it's light and easy enough that I could comfortably read it during breaks, even if several simultaneous conversations were happening around me. "Light and easy," though, isn't necessarily my favorite kind of short story, and I found myself wanting more interest, more weirdness, more challenge.

All the stories are about looking for love online, which is a reasonably interesting conceit, but I probably would have liked the book more if there had been some queer relationships rather than all the stories being about male/female romance. Note that I didn't say "man/woman romance" there: the book's final story, "Stupid Humans," is about a deer and a polar bear. This is probably my favorite story in the book: I like the quirkiness of the premise and the humor and poignancy of the plot. I like sentences like: "It is a little bit hard for polar bears to hit the right keys sometimes, with those big paws" (234). I like the fact that the polar bear and the deer meet in a climate change chat room on a site that isn't really a dating site, and I like the details of their flirtation. Other highlights of the book for me included "Love, Really," which is narrated in the second person and tells the story of the arc of a relationship through the repetition of the phrase "this is the part where," and "Limerence," because it focuses on a man's infatuation rather than a woman's. I also appreciated the structure of "Love Quiz," which offers three possible endings, ranging from anodyne to sweet to gritty, and some of the descriptions of falling for someone in "Dog People," like a character who feels like "anticipation had opened the gates of her senses; she was noticing more things around her than usual" (184). Or this part, from the same story:

She felt as if she was inhabiting her body in a new way, more consciously, and she felt an awareness of every step, the way her hands did things like tuck back a stray hair. The automaticness of her seemed to be laid bare, and it was as if she was seeing that for the first time. (190)

Elsewhere in the book, certain repetitions bugged me: two stories involve women sending pictures of their kayaks (with or without themselves) to potential dates; two stories mention The Good Earth; two stories talk about how guys who are balding always wear hats. And I sometimes found myself not quite believing in the characters/their world, or maybe just not interested enough: the middle-aged women worrying about finding love before it's too late, the apple-martini-drinking New York girl, the woman who chats online with a guy for two months before suggesting they meet, the man and woman who joke that they "define the gender wars" because he likes Billy Collins and Nirvana and she likes Anne Sexton and Tori Amos.

[Sophfronia Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Cohen has written a smart and funny collection of stories that I would consider to be the "Sex & the City" of the online dating world. Her looking-for-love characters may not be as glamorous or as young as Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, but they do have the same bittersweet vulnerability that made me want to root for their happy ending despite circumstances that seemed to be against every possibility for one. But that want pulled me through the book, story after story, and that's what a well-crafted collection does.

I've read reviews of this book commenting on certain repetitions--a sameness to the stories--but I believe Cohen is too fine a writer to be carelessly repetitive. Sometimes the art, especially in storytelling and in music, is all about the repetition. In "The Hypothetical Girl," Cohen is a jazz singer at the piano intent on tugging at your heart strings by singing you the saddest love song you've ever heard. In our time this song or story usually begins in front of a computer screen. The next thing you know, poems get written and sent, Skype sessions scheduled, girlfriends consulted, (some helpful and some not), and in-person meetings planned.

Yes, all this happens again and again in the stories, but these repetitions are important. They are a commentary on how there really is a devastating sameness to how these connections form, with the participants taking leave of all sense and reality while at the same time desperately wanting this fantasy to make sense and be real.

I like how Cohen, though, gives us the tonic for all this madness in the story "Limerence," in which the main character learns there is a word for suffering from unrequited love and this knowledge becomes a kind of comfort for him. I wish this story had come last in the book so I could walk away with this comfort like a shawl around my shoulders. "There is power in a story made of words and language," Cohen writes. "The author would like you to know that you can use just such a word, such a story as this one, to survive." These words ring true and I'm grateful for such a warm note of hope in the cold computer world landscape.

[Matthew Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.matthewejackson.com/book-r...

This is one of the many books I discovered at the 2014 Frankfurt Buchmesse – The Hypothetical Girl, by Elizabeth Cohen. I have to show my appreciation to Other Press (the publisher of this collection of short stories), because I was actually given a free copy of the book when I stopped by their booth for a second time to show this book (and another, which will be reviewed soon) to KK as one of the new books I had discovered on my Friday at the fair.

This book of short stories was was quirky, original, and fun. I read the book on the plane during my return flight from Germany, and it was easy to dip in and finish a story, then have a small break, and then go right back. The stories kept drawing me back…I had to see what the next tale would deliver.

Most of the stories are very strong offerings, with a couple of weaker efforts thrown in as well. But this was a true collection of short stories – all of the stories fit together, and (even if one was a bit weaker) none of them felt out of place in this particular assembly. Honestly, if all of the stories were as good as the best, this would easily be a book worthy of a 5 star review. No doubt about it – Cohen can write! The title story was particularly great, and perhaps my favorite was one called ‘Heart Food.’

Cohen has a unique approach to story, and I loved what she chose as her ‘topic.’ Basically, most of the stories center around couples who meet in unconventional ways (many online), and then lets us watch where their interaction takes them. The stories are often very funny, but touching and heartfelt at the same time.

I look forward to reading more by Elizabeth Cohen.

[Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am familiar with the writing style of this author because I took classes with her as an UnderGrad. I really liked the book. It had hints of places I've been to for example, "The Ground Round," which is mentioned in the first short story--knowing the smell and the look of the place makes it more fun to read and imagine what is going on. The hints of satire mixed with sarcasm and light [warm] heartedness makes for an easy read.

I love the fact that the book is based around online dating. Living in this technology overload we all have an idea of what is happening online when someone signs up on a dating site. Reading about these women and their hopes and dreams of finding Mr. Right is a slight reflection of what every woman wants, but some think it is so hard to find and opt for the easy way out with the online dating (talking to someone who you have never met and might only meet your standards behind a screen and a keyboard). As you make your way through each story one can feel the sadness and every other emotion that emits from the characters (the first kiss, the one night stand, the text or IM message from that person the characters are attracted to) we as people have at some point come across those feelings, which is what makes this book so flawless. It touches on the everyday over-thinkers of the dating world; for example, the "Stupid Humans" story.

[anna b · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, let's start by saying that I am probably not this book's target audience. I'm not entirely sure who this books target audience is, but it's definitely not me. I grabbed it off the advanced readers cart because I thought it could be a fun, light read. But I got frustrated with it.

There were only three stories that I actually liked: Love, Really; Heart Food; and Dog People. And by liked maybe I mean didn't find anything horribly wrong with. I think writing a collection of short stories must be really difficult, especially when you're drawing from your life experience. But readers are really conscious of details, and when you repeat details within multiple stories in the same collection -- which are about characters that are supposed to be in no way connected -- readers might get frustrated with that. Why is the Good Earth showing up so much? Why does every single character have a dog? Why do so many of them like Tom Waits? Why is every single character either Jewish or Latino? Am I really supposed to believe that so many people just drop the world gestalt into every day conversation?

These details aside, I found myself not caring about these characters, their stories, their struggles. But, like I said, this book wasn't written for me, so I probably don't have a place in sharing my opinions about it.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Cohen has put together fifteen short stories that all dwell on some aspect of love. While many of the stories deal with the pros and cons of online dating, they all go much deeper than that. You have Alana who finally finds the perfect man for her through an online website. The question is, should she risk meeting him and possibly having her heart broken because that's what happens in real life? Or should she keep him just out of reach, on the other side of computer screen, where they both are safe? You have Rita who has cancer as well as a mother she can't please, whose ex-boyfriend once explained that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. You have Al who isn't looking for love, but is looking to be a father. And you have the polar bear and the deer. You'll need to buy the book to learn about those two. Each story is like a mini-novel, complete with character development, plot, and the kind of unfinished ending that we often experience in real life. Cohen is a poet as well, which she demonstrates clearly through one story (Death by Free Verse) and subtly through her prose. I had plenty of moments where I laughed at loud but also moments where I felt I might cry as I read The Hypothetical Girl. I highly recommend this collection of stories by Elizabeth Cohen.