Susan Shapiro

Susan Shapiro, an award-winning writer and professor, freelances for the NY Times, Washington Post, WSJ, LA Times, NY Magazine, Salon, Elle, Oprah, Wired & New Yorker online. She's the bestselling author/coauthor of 17 books her family hates like Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Lighting Up, Unhooked, The Bosnia List and her recent memoir The Forgiveness Tour. She lives with her scriptwriter husband in Manhattan and uses her writing/publishing guides The Book Bible and Byline Bible to teach her wildly popular "instant gratification takes too long" courses at The New School, NYU, Columbia University and in private classes & seminars - now online. Follow her on Twitter at @susanshapironet, Instagram at @Profsue123 or email ProfSue123@gmail.com.



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Five Men Who Broke My Heart
by Susan Shapiro

Available in hardcover and paperback from Delacorte Press
Recently optioned for a feature film

Order at Amazon.com

Lithub Love Roundup by Zibby Owens
Marie Claire article
Read an excerpt
See The Today Show Interview
Read interviews in the The New York Times and Salon
NY Times Modern Love

International Editions


Reviews & Comments
Susan Shapiro's voice is so passionate
and honest, it's bewitching.
Erica Jong

She's one of the funniest writers about love
and marriage that I know of today.
Ian Frazier

She's hysterical and her book is funny too.
Joan Rivers

Sly, funny, on the money.
Rita Mae Brown

Heartbreaking and hilarious
Bookpage

...a witty, canny, ballsy reminder that our past relationships are part of our lives...
Lynn Harris
Salon.com


...a funny, brisk and achingly honest account of her romantic past
Julie Hinds
Detroit Free Press


Delicious prose, brave, heartfelt, funny... powerful...
Sue Margolis

This is an engaging, amazing, extremely emotional memoir. Susan Shapiro writes so well about love gone wrong that FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART broke my heart too.
Molly Jong Fast

Shapiro doesn't disappoint. She dishes outlandishly about her exes, using Freud for garnish... bitingly funny and revealing...Acknowledgements at the book's close include a note to her 'beloved husband' that reprints his advice to her. His ribald quip alone - unsuitable for a family newspaper - makes the book worth the price.
Jackie Pray
USA Today


Shapiro's funny and heartfelt recollections of past relationships are so entertaining, it's a shame she doesn't have an endless supply. The seasoned journalist... embarked on a cross-country jaunt to reconnect with her beaux... the result is a delightfully kaleidoscopic autobiography of an impulsive and passionate woman who comes of age with style.
Publishers Weekly

...In a sly, candid memoir, Shapiro revists five exes...What is best about this disarmingly frank account...is Shapiro's desire to tell the whole truth about her delusions and obsessions as well as her breakthroughs and triumphs...Shapiro lets her husband, Aaron, emerge as the book's true hero...
Pam Houston
O The Oprah Magazine


Susan Shapiro's promiscuously readable guilty pleasure of a memoir has a caustic urbane feel. A freelance writer embarks on a Seinfeldian quest to settle accounts with five exes... a comedy of manners that unfurls in a Greenwich Village demi monde...Our heroine settles for a book deal not to mention true love - sigh!
Jenny Feldman
Elle Magazine


...honest, poignant, original and hilarious
Pamela S. Thompson
Lincoln Journal Star


...suddenly old boyfriends are popping up all over. Aha! Susan thinks, here's a great idea for a book. And it is. Hilarious, neurotic, sad, funny, obsessed - and that's just the author. Susan Shapiro's life would have made a great Seinfeld episode. Then again, maybe it did.
Moira L. MacKinnon
Hamilton Ontario Spectator


...Shapiro's honest and funny assessment of her own shortcomings is...deeply touching and readers can't help but get attached to her story. Everyone...wonders about the one who got away... Shapiro is skillful and lucky enough to find out the answer without losing the one who loved her all along.
Erica Noonan
Boston Globe weekly


Hysterical
The Jerusalem Post

BEST OF THE HEAP
Here are some quality books that impressed reviewers...Wolf Schneider liked FIVE MEN WHO BROKE MY HEART...Smart, snappy chick lit - her Love Chart comparing her lovers' ages, heights, assets and fatal flaws was very entertaining.
The Santa Fe New Mexican

...All this cyber sleuthing was inspired by Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Shapiro's nonfiction account of tracking down her greatest loves. My book club agreed to read the tell-all, then dig up dirt on our own former flames. I found the exercise addictive, dredging up ex-lovers' marriages licenses and wedding photos...Thanks to Google, Classmates, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, you can now find almost anyone online...
The Santa Barbara Independent
Revered New York writing teacher Susan Shapiro decided to go back in time and visit all the exes in her past. Why had they broken up with her? Were they really that great? How had she changed through it all? A poignant, at times surprising, and always intelligent, funny read, Five Men Who Broke My Heart stands the test of time as one woman’s quest to understand herself.
Zibby Owens
Lithub Love Roundup


These sharp, sassy city girls keep on coming. Shapiro sets out, in witty one-liners, to describe men she has loved....More interesting are Shapiro's wacky warm parents...The last part is best...She says "I realize I hadn't emulated my mother, I'd married her." She is the best choice of all.
Barbara Fisher
Boston Sunday Globe


...It's a funny midlife crisis book about a woman...who tracks down her old boyfriends...The chapter on her first date with her future husband...is as clever and revealing as anything Woody Allen has imagined...
J. Peder Zane
The Raleigh, North Carolina News " Observer


In the end, Shapiro concludes that the failed relationships were her fault. Note to author: They weren't. Or maybe you skipped some of what you did wrong. Anyway, everyone who reads this book will be thrilled you didn't marry the guy who was secretly sleeping with your roommate.
Susan Whitney
Deseret Morning News


...like slipping into a warm, inviting bath...Shapiro reveals all, slicing her life to the bone and summing up her lovers in wry sentences...a fast funny read that pulls us forward, curious to discover why relationships with five interesting, intelligent men imploded...
Sue Pierman
Milwaukee Journal Sentinal


...An easy, breezy read...Talk about a great hook...David steps into the picture as if he were Freddie Krueger, knives gleaming...he slashes her heart....Now that's what I call a scene...In the most poignant writing, she gently confronts her distant father and learns his small but important secrets...
Patti Thorn
Rocky Mountain News


I was literally standing in the middle of my living room reading... You can't wait to read about her next liaison... self-deprecating and hilarious...As captivating as her reunions are, her family makes for great storytelling...With its sweet ending, sharp wit...this book will leave you hoping for a sequel...
Girlfriendbooks.com

No one will feel ambivalent about this tell-all memoir...well-written enough to cause even the least nostalgic reader to remember romantic moments way back when...
The Fort Worth Texas
Morning Star Telegraph


Light, playful...the entertaining dating philosophies she culls from her soul-searching offer a decent payoff. For example, Shapiro rationalizes her penchant for sensationalistic celebrity breakups: "No matter how rich or talented or smart you were, sex gone wrong could turn your life into an ugly circus. It made me feel better..."
Kate Jacobs
New York Times Book Review


...a wise, funny and moving memoir that gives birth to a new, original voice....Any woman struggling to become more actualized can relate to Shapiro's quest...
Cindy Frenkel
Jewish News


...deft, diverting and laugh-out-loud funny
Susan Comninos
The Forward


...as lively and genuinely funny as the work of...Wendy Wasserstein...a Cosmo girl's tale of a life divided between ambition and fiery lust...As Shapiro shuffles old boyfriends like a lovesick teenager with a tarot deck, she evokes a very powerful sense of romance's liminal nature...
Lynn Crosbie
The Toronto Star


...a thoughtful examination of what you can learn and what you may risk by journeying deep into your own past.
Carole Goldberg
Hartford Courant


...For older sisters looking for fairytale endings, I recommend Five Men Who Broke My Heart...Shapiro meets an old flame during her "no-book-no-baby summer".... This has a happy ending -- Shapiro finds her true love --- but like in the Real World...it's about hard-won compromise, not romantic mush. And, hey, she gets her book, too.
Margo Hammond
The St. Petersburg Times


Published in Japanese by Hayakawa Publishing... "Five Men Who Broke My Heart" is an impassioned memoir that chronicles Shapiro's life as she reconnects with five former boyfriends much to the dismay of her husband... told with astounding honesty...the story has universal appeal... a no-holds barred page-turner.
Kyodo News Service


For more info contact Susan Corcoran, Director of Publicity, at SCorcoran@randomhouse.com
(212) 782-9425

Copyright 2004-2023 Susan Shapiro. All Rights Reserved.
Fix-Up Fanatic cover art by Mary Lynn Blasutta