Love and Other Hazards by Claudia Riess.
This book starts right in with adult situations although it's a little girl that is crawling all over a male unclothes statue.
Mother is there and uses it as a learning experience. There is also a man there with his little daughter and they realize both the kids go to the same school.
The adults are not compatible but they are thrown together at work.
Enjoyed learning about Russian foods at dinner and how the words are defined.
Didn't care for how some will have sex with others although seeing another. It's just the way I was brought up.
This is NY and you can feel the atmosphere of the locations of where each live. Misunderstandings occur and men are mishandled.
Discussing who the father is having sex with is just not my idea of a family talk. Sex itself doesn't really show they care much for the other as it's more an animal instinct to have sex.
There are a lot of characters and I got easily confused as to who was who. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written and engaging novel about love, sex, avoiding both, and falling into one or the other. I'd best describe this as a rom-com for the literati set. It was amusing, deft, emotional, and endearing.

The main characters, Glenda and Eugene, are upper-middle-class New Yorkers with small daughters who attend the same school. The comedy of manners begins when one of their daughters is caught by the other parent fondling the private parts of one of the naked statues in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The comedy continues, through one odd run-in or another. Their paths cross several times in several situations, and a friendship of a kind develops. There are hints of a "Harry Met Sally" relationship here, complete with funny sidekicks in the friends category, and farcical situations that are comical in a Woody Allen-ish, rather than a Judd Apatow-ish, way.

The characters are well-drawn, sympathetic and endearing. Glenda's quirks, habits and personality are off-putting at the beginning, both for the reader as well as for other characters, but the story slowly reveals her backstory and emotional vulnerabilities, and soon she is endeared to us. Eugene is equally quirky, in different ways, and has similarly difficult histories that explain his own idiosyncrasies. Separately, they're likable enough, but together, they're magic, their repartee bubbling like newly opened champagne. I enjoyed their relationship, their self-awareness both as separate characters and as a couple, and their intellectual delving into their own and each other's foibles.

The author has a light and ironic touch, portraying her characters with wit, insight, and humor.

Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy, and I look forward to reading more from this author. ( )