Book Review: THE LAST BLIND DATE by Linda Yellin

For those of you who can't imagine dating long distance - I don't know, the one or two of you left over 55? - pick up The Last Blind Date by Linda Yellin. A memoir of sorts, yet told in an engaging, girly, chick-lit sort of way, Ms. Yellin takes us on a roller coaster journey through the emotions of new love, from giddiness to angst and back again, morphing into a lasting, satisfying relationship.

Let's face it: it's a modern, much smaller world these days. People can find anything on the Internet: merchandise, information, news, even conjugal partners. After a failed marriage and the subsequent dearth of available dates, the author finds her love, Randy, through an old-fashioned method, via hook-up of mutual friends. The inside joke is that they've slept in the same bed, only at different times. They know of each other, but their paths fail to converge.

With Linda in Chicago, and Randy in New York, there are logistical challenges. There is a series of phone calls, each more charming than the last. Linda and Randy finally meet - thereby putting the long distance love affair into action. Sparks fly on that first tentative visit, despite the fact that Linda second guesses her actions and worries how she appears to this strange, wonderful man. Relatives are met (mom, dad, the supposedly dreaded step-children). She starts out a Chicagoan who is visiting New York, and ends up a bona fide transplant who leads the way for her visitors.

The Last Blind Date is so humorously and eloquently told, the reader nearly forgets it's a memoir and not fiction. The book is impossible to put down - I had to find out how it all ended (Spoiler alert: happily). Plus, I've been there, done that, with much the same results. It's nice to know that others in the long-distance relationship game share the same unknowns, and that blind dates can end so gloriously.