Susan Donovan

“I wanted to be strong when I went back to Persuasion. Strong and beautiful and totally together. I dreamed of the day I’d get to rub all your faces in my sheer awesomeness.”

“As her lungs pumped and her head cleared, she wondered if all the effort she’d put into blotting out the pain had deadened her ability to feel pleasure, too. What a shame. What a loss.”

“Dear God, there couldn't be a single thing more humiliating in this entire world. Unless, of course, Hairy had been out here in his maxi pad. Thomas sighed. Walking around the house with that thing tied around his waist, Hairy had looked like a—well, he'd looked like an ugly dog in a Kotex. Thomas had laughed his ass off at first, but soon discovered the crazy scheme had saved him about three cleanup jobs in one evening alone.”

“That’sthe kind of dress that belongs on the floor, all wrinkled up, with the zipper broken and the sleeves torn.That dress isn’t right for you at all. In fact, I think you should take it off right now.”

“Light mayonnaise is like masturbation—it approximates the real thing but leaves you unfulfilled,ultimately leading to fantasies about diving face-first into a big-ass jar of the real stuff.”

“And I want cabana boys named Raoul to rubwarm, fragrant oil all over me, from head to toe, all over my throat and chest and my legs and arms. Iwant—”Theo pushed the chair back on the deck and it made a loud scraping sound. He grabbed Lucy’s faceand kissed her hard, then rose up and placed her on her feet, taking her hand.“Where are we going, Theo?”“Shh.” He stroked her hair as he led her inside. “The name’s Raoul.”

“Ah, Milk Duds. The official candy of pissed-off fat women everywhere”

“Have you ever met a man who looked so damn delicious that you wanted to sop him up with a hot buttermilk biscuit and inhale him in one gulp?”“Why, yes, I have,” Doris said.That was a shocker. “Really? What happened?”“I married him.”

“I think we love who we love and there’s not a damn thing that can be done about it.”

“A punching bag. The guy was pounding on a punching bag. That realization took about a nanosecond to register in her brain before the real important information came to the forefront: LoriSue, God bless her slutty little soul, had been absolutely correct. He was male-stripper material, and he’d been thoughtful enough to strip to a pair of athletic shorts on his very first night in the neighborhood.”

“She'd even violated the only sensible rule of dieting she'd ever run across, the sage advice of the Muppets' Miss Piggy, who recommended never eating anything bigger than your head.”