Savannah "Van" Leone met Peter Clarke on their first day of undergrad. She made one of those embarrassing entrances that only occur in nightmares, and he came to her rescue. After class, they went for coffee, and a fast friendship was formed. Van quickly fell in love, but Peter met Van's best friend Janie and fell in love with her. Six years later, Van is serving as the maid of honor at their wedding, pumpkin-orange gown and all.

After the ceremony, Peter comes to Van and kisses her. When it seems that he may be ready to profess his love for her, Van encourages him to return to Janie. When he tries again, Janie's mom enters the room. After that debacle, Van goes home and treats herself to a bottle of vodka and a Rin Tin Tin marathon. This leads to her adopting a puppy she finds on the internet... from Slovakia. Or so she thinks. What she ends up with is a hundred-pound German Shepherd who only responds to commands in Slovak and comes with a special recipe for his meals.

When Van takes Joe (as she names her newly-acquired dog) to the vet, she meets Dr. Alex Brandt, who is handsome and charming. They begin an easy friendship, mostly centered around Joe, which then eases into a dating relationship. However, Alex has been burnt before (he's divorced), and Van is still feeling gun-shy from her pseudo-relationship with Peter.

Just as things are starting to really click for Alex and Van, Peter and Janie come back from their honeymoon and begin to wreak havoc on Van's life. All this happens as Van is trying to find a new house (her condo association is kicking her out for violating the pet policy), and Alex finds out that Van has been hiding some secrets.

This was an endearing story from beginning to end. Although it would be easy to get frustrated with Van, she wasn't painted as a girl feeling sorry for herself and pining over a boy. Instead, she was a woman who didn't understand why her relationship wound up where they did, and this relationship with Peter was just another example that she tried to examine. And when she made mistakes (such as drunk-ordering a dog), she tried to make the best of it, rather than making the problem go away.

Some of the scenes with Van and Joe were probably supposed to be more humorous than they seemed, but they made me uncomfortable. I always feel uncomfortable when an animal is doing what animals do and the human yells at them, which was initially how Van reacted to a lot of Joe's antics. The subplot with Louis was especially compelling, and I was pleased with how that turned out. While the resolution of the book was satisfying, it did seem a little abrupt.