Rating: 
Summary: Please do not purchase this book!
Review: "Dumping Billy" is Olivia Goldsmith's last book. I doubt it represents how she would have liked to be remembered.Protagonist "Kate" has a serious superiority complex-
Her old friends from Brooklyn just don't get her anymore, now that she's a "Doctor" (school psych.) in Manhattan.
Of one friend: "Bina definitely had an irony deficiency." To another: "You've had a haircut" "Nope, just had my ears lowered." Those New Yorkers and their witty repartee! Who could expect the poor folks in Brooklyn to keep up with snappy patter like that? Kate must be referred to as the protagonist, as she is certainly the central character, but a long way from anyone's heroine. (Except, perhaps, her own.) She's elitist, smug, and insufferable:
"Her apartment was in Chelsea, but Kate could pass for a downtown hipster."
"...she was grateful for all she herself had learned about style from Brice, college, Manhattan boutiques and her current New York friends."
"But now that she had a circle of intellectual, cosmopolitan pals, she could give up the frustration over Bina's provincial interests and conversation and simply love her good heart." I don't know about you, but I HATE this woman! I kept waiting for Kate to come to the realization that she was narrow minded and small- I thought the point of the book must be her transformation. Alas, no. Although she doesn't seem bright enough to have completed the SAT (let alone a doctorate) and she is a wretched specimen of a human being, she is rewarded. I expect this from life, but pop novels usually follow more logical standards of good and evil. The sophomoric dialogue is peppered with witty retorts like "Uh, duh!" and other lines I'm loathe to repeat, but in the interest of saving others the afternoon of pain I just experienced, I'll elaborate:
Kate leaves her (homosexual) friends:
"'Say goodnight, Gracie.' 'Goodnight, Gracie,' Elliot and Brice chorused."
(Gay men are so clever....) Kate refers to her Brooklyn girlfriends as her "crew" and her "posse." Do thirty-one year old professional women in Manhattan do this? "If she but knew it, she easily looked the most elegant woman in the room." (Oh god. I felt like I was reading a Babysitters Club book.) And is the "If she but knew it" line a joke? Every page previous to this seemed to exist only to reinforce how wonderful Kate thinks she is! Billy says: "And I can date anyone I want!"
Our protagonist responds: "Not anyone. You can't date me!" "You're just a Mick who never even got out of Brooklyn. The trick with you is you are slightly better looking on the outside than you are on the inside, and the inner and the outer you are in constant conflict. That's why you don't know you're a loser."
This is the conversation of a Psychologist? Again with Billy, Kate the "Doctor" tells him that he has a "repetition compulsion." He references the DSM IV, and mentions the fact that Freud isn't terribly popular these days, then he says "And I don't have a ...petition...whatever."
It certainly seems logical to ME that a man who quotes Freud and the DSM IV would have problems with a big word like "repetition." As others have suggested, I doubt this book was written by Goldsmith. Her books weren't literature, but they were well crafted and amusing.
This book was probably written after Goldsmith's death, (maybe based on an idea she was working on) by a white professional heterosexual male, most likely in his twenties. A terrible waste of trees...
Rating: 
Summary: Like but not love....
Review: I can't say I LOVED this book, but it wasn't as bad as some reviewers claimed it to be. All of the Brooklyn girls worked on my nerves a bit, but i did enjoy Kate and Billy and Elliot and Brice.
Rating:
Summary: What a waste of time and money :(
Review: I COULD NOT finish this book...Kate, the heroine, is a terrible stuck up snooty cow, who doesn't deserve friends, and started irritating me almost right away. The story is weak, the hero is also not very likeable and basically, I had to put the book down unfinished and just face the fact, that this is complete rubbish and a waste of my money... My advice to you? DO NOT buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: I hate Kate....This is the worst heroine ever!!
Review: I couldn't finish this book. It was my first by this author and it is definitely my last. The character of Kate was so superior and condescending it was ridiculous.
Kate never had anything kind to say about another person. Her version of a compliment was "Oh, I know that so and so is (insert disparaging remark), but they have a good heart and I love them despite their faults." I mean come on. The character of Kate acted as if she was doing others a favor by being their friends.
I couldn't take it and finally had to put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: "Regaining Brooklyn"
Review: I disagree with Publishers Weekly rather nasty review. I found the book absolutely delightful and I have a Jewish, Brooklyn background and plenty of Gay friends. It's a novel,not a polemic on Gays, NY or Jews. It was very funny, touching and romantic, and I don't see how anyone could find it offensive. If you want a light, charming, funny getaway this is the book for you. I'm primarily a mystery reader, this was a sweet break
Rating: 
Summary: Who Really Wrote this Novel?
Review: I have read and thoroughly enjoyed the following novels by Olivia
Goldsmith: The First Wives Club
Flavor of the Month
The Bestseller
Fashionably Late
Marrying Mom
Switcheroo
Young Wives
Bad Boys (although a lot of you disliked it, I actually enjoyed it)
Pen Pals and have concluded, in my opinion, based on Ms. Goldsmith's untimely death, Dumping Bill was not Olivia Goldsmith's finished product. The plot may have been Olivia's but this story does not fit the in depth characterizations of her previous works. Although I would not recommend passing on "Dumping Billy", as I found it interesting that a lot of us still mistake good looks with stupidity, cockiness or something worse. There are times when you have to look under the surface of an individual or a situation to perhaps find something you might have otherwised missed, like a good person who assumes an undeserved title without actually knowing it exists. The lesson I learned here was "you can't judge a good book by its cover". Just beware this novel does not compare to the wonderful novels Olivia Goldsmith has defined throughout the years and you will come away asking the same question I did "Who Really Wrote this Novel"?
Rating: 
Summary: OK, its not just me, this book lacks heart and wit
Review: I have to agree with the other reviewers who say this is NOT Goldsmith. The very first part, maybe, her interaction with the little boy. I thought that she was setting Kate up for a fall like in Pen Pals to make her a better human. Also I miss the humor--making fun of the provincial Brookyln folks and gays but not seeing the absurdities and humor in Manhattan? "And Barbara Pym. A British author she and Elliot both reread frequently, was one of her secret addictions." What the #$%& ?? I can't see either of these quasi-hipsters sitting down with a copy of "Some Tame Gazelle." Better they read Dorothy Parker. Even better the real author of this book read Parker.
To quote Miss Parker--This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible!
Review: I picked up this book to have a light, entertaining read. Unfortunately, there was no entertainment involved. Like many of the other reviewers, I hated Kate. I was not really attached to any of the characters, but I found Kate really detestable. I thought she was snobby. I appreciated that she had a semi-rough childhood and wanted something better for herself as an adult. Then when she finally got it, she really seemed to be arrogant and forget those who stood by her side while she was growing up. I also was not crazy about Billy. I thought he had no depth. I felt never felt like he was more than a pretty face, even after you found out his background and true feelings. I guess after writing all this, I mostly want to say, you should pass on this book!
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: I was so sad to hear about the passing of Olivia Goldsmith, such a great lost! I really liked this book. I don't know if Olivia wrote this book or not (like everyone is saying) but it was one of the best books I have read. I would like to know the identity of the person that did write the book, so I can read more by that author. The characters were funny and the story line was excellent.
Rating:
Summary: A real letdown
Review: I was sorry to hear of Olivia Goldsmith's death, but nowhere as sorry as I was to have plodded through Dumping Billy. As another poster noted, it does seem as though it was written by someone else. I have loved all Ms. Goldsmith's books---it is just too much of a coincidence that she died, and shortly afterwood this inane book comes out. There is no way she wrote this silly read. It starts off ok--even pretty funny--particularly when we're with Elliott & Co. The beginning of the book certainly belongs to Ms. Goldsmith--her style shines through. Then suddenly all the snappy talk comes to a screeching halt and what could have been one of her best crashes down on us. Since when does our author take us into ice cream shops and have the two main characters cutely get a situation of little kids screaming for treats under control? I had to check my book to be sure it wasn't recommended for twelve year olds. Ms.Goldsmith surely would have gagged (as did I)at this nonsense! Another turn-off was the obnoxious personality of Kate. How she had any friends at all was beyond me.That was another tipoff that it was written by someone else---in her other books,we almost always could relate to the main character, or at least like her. What a shame to have lost a great writer----she must be spinning to know that her name was on this eighth-grade goofiness.
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