A magnificent debut in women‘s entertainment! Funny without lapsing into silliness, this book has plenty of situational humor and definitely depth as well.
Everything in Lena Klein’s life is just the way she likes it: neat and tidy. One week before her wedding and her 30th birthday, however, her fiancé, Simon, reveals that he has fallen in love with somebody else. It isn’t long afterwards that she is also fired from her job without notice.
Lena draws up a three-point plan. 1. She will get herself a dream job and make it to the top. 2. She will fall in love with a sensitive, faithful dream man. 3. She will transform herself from a plain Jane into a sexy dream woman.
But all that is easier said than done. Instead of landing at a cool PR agency, she winds up in a messy bookshop owned by an old codger named Otto. In spite of everything she does, men don’t seem overly impressed with her new sexy vibe. As time goes by, Lena falls in love with Ben, of all people, the biggest womanizer in Central Europe, with whom she argues incessantly. Struggling against her feelings, she starts a relationship with Jan, a writer who is much younger, and precisely the sensitive, faithful type of dream man she is looking for.
Gradually, she begins to thoroughly enjoy her job in the bookshop. She revamps the entire shop and takes Otto into her heart. Lena and Ben grow closer, but do not admit their feelings to themselves or one another.
When she ultimately really gets her dream job in a PR agency, saying farewell to Otto and the bookshop is very difficult. Lena has to admit that her grand plan to find happiness hasn’t worked and that she has been chasing the wrong goals. She decides to stay with Otto, sets out to tell him, but learns that he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. She rushes off to see him and encounters Ben who is a doctor there and informs her that Otto has terminal cancer.
Ben stands by Lena’s side during the difficult times; the two make up with one another. When Otto learns that Lena turned down a position with a PR agency because she wanted to stay with him, he gives her the bookshop.
On her 31st birthday, Lena musters all her courage and confesses her love to Ben. Although they manage to become embroiled in an argument even over this, it emerges that he loves her as well. Shortly after her birthday, Otto dies, and a year later Ben and Lena marry. In the end, Lena is not the person she wanted to become, but she’s become the real Lena