Imagine Me & You

Mernit, Billy. Imagine Me & You: A Novel. New York: Shaye Areheart , 2008.

This is March’s LibraryThing early review book but, receiving it late, I just finished it. It’s bright and funny and witty. I loved it. I hated it. Simply put, Imagine Me and You is about a screen writer named Jordan who, because he is in danger of losing his wife Isabella, creates imaginative and sometimes halarious schemes to win her back. It illustrates how communication when confused with emotions (and language barriers) can be misconstrued. Misunderstandings make mountains out of molehills.
While I had issues with shallow character development, one of my biggest problems with Imagine Me and You  was the Dickens-like gimmick of placing a ghostlike “Christmas Carol” character in Jordan’s path. His “muse” Naomi tries to steer Jordan in the right direction beyond writing –  even going so far as to show Jordan what his estranged wife is doing without him. One minute Naomi and Jordan are in California, the next, Italy – watching Isabella moon over a photo she just happens to pull out. Of course Jordan wants to speak to her, but as Naomi warns, “she can’t hear you”…of course she can’t.  
The ending is predicatable. Jordan himself gives it away. It’s no mistake his story mirrors the screenplay he has been writing throughout the story. But, the real saving grace of Imagine Me & You is how the story is written. Setting up each chapter to follow the script of a romantic comedy lends a playful foreshadowing to the plot.