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Writer's pictureMax Sinsheimer

SOLD! The No-Nonsense Guide to Divorce (by Lori Hellis)


© ABC7 Chicago

Stress and uncertainty are the enemies of marriage, and in 2020, we've had plenty of both, plus something else: constant togetherness. Some marriages will grow stronger as couples ride out the most challenging year in living memory. But for others, quarantining together made it impossible to ignore the cracks that had been building between spouses. Around the world, divorce lawyers are reporting sharp increases in people contacting them about starting divorce proceedings. (China was the canary in the coal mine in this regard.)


That is why Lori Hellis's The No-Nonsense Guide to Divorce is so timely and needed, and why I am so glad that Rowman & Littlefield will be publishing it. This is the book Cheryl Strayed and Jenny Lawson would co-author if they happened to be divorce lawyers. Unflinching and acerbically funny, it crystalizes Lori's 25+ years of family law experience into one concise and comforting guide to navigating divorce that takes readers from those first, raw and terrifying days, through the won’t-it-ever-end middle, to building a life beyond divorce.


The No-Nonsense Guide to Divorce drew my attention with its brutally frank, yet completely compassionate tone. Take, for example, Lori's prime directive: “Whatever this shit is, it belongs to you. Don’t make your shit your children’s shit.” Or her knowing advice that “When your child asks you where will daddy live, do not answer ‘In hell.’” Lori is laugh-out-loud funny, but most importantly, she really knows her stuff!


Though The No-Nonsense Guide to Divorce will be of use to anyone feeling their way through one of life's toughest experiences, it is particularly aimed at divorcing millennials, who are often in more complicated situations when they divorce than earlier generations of divorcees. It tackles the special considerations needed when military marriages, gay marriages, and unmarried partnerships dissolve; the use of coparenting apps; the use and abuse of social media; and other extremely pragmatic and curent advice unavailable in the existing divorce literature.


Lori is a family and criminal defense lawyer who has represented hundreds of

divorce clients. She served twenty years in the Air National Guard and was also a fierce public defender who represented adults and juveniles in criminal matters. In addition to her JD, Lori has an MFA in creative writing. The No-Nonsense Guide to Divorce is the perfect collision of her two degrees!


Here is the Publishers Marketplace deal memo:

Congratulations to Lori and her editor at Rowman & Littlefield, Suzanne Staszak-Silva!

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