There has been a lot of buzz about this novel and that buzz is well deserved! I'm glad that I picked this novel up. The unnamed narrator is in her mid 40's and is a multimedia artist in Los Angeles. When we meet her, she's planning a road trip from LA to NY and has told her husband and son that this is what she wants to do. Instead of completing the journey, she pulls over in nearby Monrovia and spends $20K to revamp a cheap hotel room with the goal of spending two weeks there instead. She loves them, but feels stifled by them. While in Monrovia she meets an attractive younger man named Danny and his wife, who she hires to redecorate the motel room that she is staying in. She and Danny are tremendously attracted to each other but struggle against that attraction.
This book reframes the concept of a mid-life crisis - traditionally, it has seemed that only men have been acknowledged as having these, but what about women who are going through a massive hormonal shift at the same time (hello menopause!). I love how this novel explored menopause, and midlife shifts for women. In that way, it is a novel that is revolutionary - I don't remember ever reading or hearing about a novel that took on that particular topic head on (which is mind boggling when you think that half the population deals with it). I enjoyed the narrator even in her unreliable narration - she's quirky but seemingly real. She is what she is and I liked that. The book itself is deceptively readable and hard to put down!
Definitely worth it to add to your library.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment