Ask Again Later (2007)

In Jill A. Davis's Ask Again Later, there's a heroine, Emily, who can't commit even though a seemingly perfect guy loves her; a hot twentysomething at work who keeps asking her out; a gay best buddy; and even a trip to Bergdorf Goodman. But Ask Again does not stall in predictable chick-lit terrain. Emily's relationships with her parents — a cleaning-obsessed mom just diagnosed with breast cancer and a perma-bachelor dad who left the family when Emily was young — are the novel's hilarious, heartfelt backbone. In less skilled hands, a death at the end could've been emotionally manipulative. But Davis' witty voice (she's a former writer for David Letterman's Late Show) is pitch-perfect. A-