"A delight to read"

In Philadelphia Adrienne "Ari" Kelly knows stress as she is proud that her thesis "The Effects of Telephone Answering Systems on Psychological and Physical Well Being" was published by Psychology Forum. The paper centered on the stress caused by phone-answering systems that leave customers in frustrating loops and make it easier to gain an audience with the Pope than talk to a human. Her family and the family business add extra pressures on Ari besides two years of hard work obtaining her advanced degree.

Popular Rag Magazine distorts Ari's paper with an article on "If the Wait Doesn't Kill You ... The Answering System Will." This causes Simon Masterson's stress level to go stratospheric when the influential Financial Journal picks up the story and wants to interview him on the impact of his firm's computerized telephone answering systems have on people's stress level. Simon, owner of SimonSays, demands she backs her findings with data or retract her article. She explains to him how Rag distorted her paper and the Rag followed up by making matters worse. Ari's stress is to the moon with her new job on hold, her fiancé ending their engagement, and her libido making her want to study her lust for Simon.

HUNG UP ON YOU is an amusing contemporary romance with an intriguing serious tone involving external stress inducers that readers will empathize with. The story line is fun to follow as Ari's life collapses starting with the Rag's abuse of her thesis. Though her lunatic family takes away from the prime plot starring a delightful mismatched pairing, the audience will enjoy this wonderful tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 25, 2004

Summary

Ari Kelly thought she had a perfect life. Her long-time fiance finally wants to set a date, she's finished her thesis and has been offered the job of her dreams. But in the blink of the eye her perfect life becomes perfectly awful. Her thesis had become tabloid fodder, her fiance wants a break, her grandmother's run away from the home, her mother's left her father, and her brother's moving to California to be a professional surfer. What else could go wrong? Then Simon Masterson enters the picture. A man who makes her feel oh so right. But Ari knows that what she's feeling is nothing but stress-induced lust. If she acted on her feelings she'd just be using Simon. But Simon Says...use me! In HUNG UP ON YOU, Ari and Simon learn that although no one ever said life was easy, sometimes love can be!