My review: 3.25⭐for this debut novel
This book dives into marriage, mother/daughter relationships and daughter/father relationships.
My only daughter and I are only a couple of years off in age to Maggie and Gia. ‘Fine’ is an answer I hear all too often, so I can totally relate to some aspects of this book.
Maggie and Jim have been married for nearly 20 years. Their 17 year old daughter, Gia, is heading off to college soon. They’re all growing apart. Maggie doesn’t feel like Jim listens to her or has time for her anymore. They don’t appreciate her. They take advantage of her and expect her to do everything. She has a troubled relationship with her own mother and brother, and her father is deteriorating in a nursing home. Jim is getting annoyed with his job as a therapist and knows he’s slowly pulling away and avoiding Maggie. So when she meets Michael at the gym, she starts to feel better about herself with this younger man showing interest in her.
Mostly told in Maggie’s perspective, we get a couple of parts told by Jim and Maggie’s father, I think his name is Isaac. It was heartbreaking to hear Isaac tell his side about coping with his forgetfulness.
The narration was good for Maggie’s voice, but not so much for the male characters. I really wish we had a male narrator for Jim, Isaac and Michael. There were some long pauses that made me think I lost my audio connection, but if I looked at my phone it was just because they were switching to different parts within the chapters ~ would have been nice if the narrator said that maybe.
Overall, I wasn’t overly wowed, but it was a solid debut. Every character was pretty much annoying at one point or another, except for Isaac. I’m not too sure about the ending, perhaps an epilogue would have been nice to wrap everything up nicely. I would give this author a go again.
*Thanks to Netgalley, Blackstone Publishing and the author for the advanced audiobook. I am voluntarily leaving my honest review*
Book blurb: Audio release date ~ April 12, 2022
Maggie Dolan finds herself at forty-five at a crossroads in her life. Once a high-level executive, she’s chosen to be a stay-at-home mom for the last seventeen years. But now with her daughter, Gia, soon leaving for college, and her husband, disconnected and with secrets he hasn’t shared, Maggie decides it’s time to figure out what she wants for the rest of her life. As she begins her journey, she has to deal with a narcissistic mother, a brother who doesn’t like her and most damaging of all, the news that her father, her rock, has medical issues that may take him from her. Overwhelmed by all these issues, she’s led in a direction that could destroy what she’s built and make her question the choices she’s made. She’s torn between the life she’s always known and something more exciting that she never expected.
