Author: Ava Robinson
Year published: 2024
Category: Adult fiction (romance)
Pages: 352 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (NY)
Summary: A touching and deeply funny debut about starting over sober only to discover life’s biggest messes are still waiting right where you left them.
The very last person anyone should worry about is Emma. Yes, hi, she’s an alcoholic. But she’s officially been sober for one entire year. That’s twelve months of better health. Fifty-two whole weeks of focusing on nothing but her nine-to-five office job, group meetings, and avoiding the kind of bad decisions that previously left her awash in shame and regret. It’s also been 365 days of not dating. And with her new dating profile, Emma, 26, of New York is ready to put herself back out there.
Except—was dating always this complicated? And did Emma’s mother really have to choose now to move in with her new boyfriend? Being assigned to plan her office’s holiday party feels like icing on the suddenly very overwhelming cake until her estranged father reappears with devastating news. Icing, meet cherry on top. But then there’s Ben, the charming IT guy who, despite Emma’s awkwardness and shortcomings, seems to maybe actually get her? Sobriety is turning out to be far from the flawless future Emma had once envisioned for herself, but as she allows herself to open up to Ben and confront difficult past relationships, she’s beginning to realize that taking things one day at a time might just be the perfectly imperfect path she’s meant to be on.
Review: Book of the Month does it again! I wasn't really prepared for what this book was about. I read the summary when I chose it for one of my December books, but then promptly forgot the details. I thought it was a romance (see the cover, it's got that vibe), which it is in part, but I didn't realize it is really about one woman's struggle to stay sober and how that affects her life in work, family, and relationships.
Emma is a an alcoholic with a tense relationship with her family. She compartmentalizes parts of herself, showing people what she thinks they need to see (think work Emma, fun Emma, etc). Life is exhausting when we feel we have to be a certain person to different groups. Do we remember how to behave? What to say? Emma finally realizes she is none of those façades, and that she needs to figure out who she is for real. Sobriety exposes all the details of life.
Emma has a complicated relationship with her dad (also an alcoholic) and the author dealt with that well. Even when our parents let us down, we love them. Emma is trying to figure out how to navigate that relationship now that she is sober.
The most poignant moment in the story for me is when Emma realizes that just because she is sober, it doesn't mean everything is perfect. Life's issues don't disappear because she isn't drinking, she just sees them more clearly now.
Challenges for which this counts: none
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