這世界上好像只有三種男人：完全和妳在一起的男人；表面上和妳在一起，但實際上又沒和妳在一起的男人；會盡他所能和妳接近，但永遠也不會屬於妳的男人……
結婚代表的是這個意思：至少有一個男人曾經愛過妳，妳是他在這個世界上最愛的人。
但是要怎麼做才能讓一個男人這樣愛妳？
妳是要等著被追求，或是要自己主動去追求他？
漢娜從小就在學習妥協和讓步是怎麼一回事，因為她有個陰晴不定的父親，大吼大叫、摔門或者砸碗盤，都是屢見不鮮的「居家生活」。
「在一個不穩定的家庭中長大，會讓你明白這個世界並不是為了配合你而存在的。」這是漢娜的體認。對愛情也是如此，個性封閉複雜的她，明明很渴望談戀愛，卻怎麼也不敢跨出一步，甚至在大學派對上裝睡，以免男生來搭訕時蠢態畢露！
大四那年漢娜的第一任男友麥可出現了，麥可迷戀她，但她卻連「我愛你」都說不出口；畢業後漢娜又認識了第二任男友奧立佛，可惜這個帥氣的傢伙對很多美女都有「無法自制」的衝動！
其實，漢娜心底深處有一個完美情人──表姊的前男友亨利。她常想：如果能和亨利在一起，那其他一切的事情就都不重要了！問題是，亨利總是似有情若無意，漢娜也不敢大膽追求，因為她太珍惜這個未來的幸福了，就像收藏一瓶香檳那樣，遲遲不願啜飲……
★本書中文版由「皇冠」出版。
“Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which, in Hannah’s observation, is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into adulthood.”–from The Man of My Dreams
In her acclaimed debut novel, Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld created a touchstone with her pitch-perfect portrayal of adolescence. Her prose is as intensely realistic and compelling as ever in The Man of My Dreams, a disarmingly candid and sympathetic novel about the collision of a young woman’s fantasies of family and love with the challenges and realities of adult life.
Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannah’s own life, her parents’ marriage is crumbling. And somewhere in between these two extremes–just maybe–lie the answers to love’s most bewildering questions. But over the next decade and a half, as she moves from Philadelphia to Boston to Albuquerque, Hannah finds that the questions become more rather than less complicated: At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed-up childhood? Is settling for someone who’s not your soul mate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being plucky–or just pathetic?
None of the relationships in Hannah’s life are without complications. There’s her father, whose stubbornness Hannah realizes she’s unfortunately inherited; her gorgeous cousin, Fig, whose misbehavior alternately intrigues and irritates Hannah; Henry, whom Hannah first falls for in college, while he’s dating Fig; and the boyfriends who love her more or less than she deserves, who adore her or break her heart. By the time she’s in her late twenties, Hannah has finally figured out what she wants most–but she doesn’t yet know whether she’ll find the courage to go after it.
Full of honesty and humor, The Man of My Dreams is an unnervingly insightful and beautifully written examination of the outside forces and personal choices that make us who we are.