LOVED!!!!!

Casey is an aspiring writer, a waitress, a woman in mourning who recently lost her mother and is estranged from her father, and is in a very transitional time in her life when she meets and falls in love with two very different men. A book about writing a book could have been too meta but King's characters leapt off the page and her writing style was raw and approachable. Casey's constant identity struggles and her unexplored grief drove the novel, and her complicated relationships with the men in her life kept me glued to the story. This was a classic contemporary coming-of-age novel told in an entirely new and exciting way.

When I finished this, I felt book bereft, like I wouldn't find another book for a long time that would make me this emotionally and viscerally affected. Lily King's writing about art, friendship, family and romantic relationships, and youth is pitch perfect. I found myself taking screenshots of lines and entire paragraphs. I worried at the beginning that Casey's story would be dark and devastating, but I was surprised by how gently good and supportive most of the people around her turn out to be. I was left with a full heart, and yet simultaneously heartbroken to see it end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was invested in the outcomes of many of the characters. Well written and enjoyable to get lost in, the audio production was also well done.

immediate thoughts:
LOVED. all i have to say for the moment

Maybe even 4.5 stars for this one. Very well written. Likable characters who have real issues and real faults. A little romantic in places and a little neatly wrapped, but I needed a bit of a feel good so that all worked for me.

This is one of those special and marvelous novels that hits at just the right moments. [strange Freudian slip but first I typed “write moments”

So much hard stuff alongside normal stuff, told in a funny, lovely, meander-y way.

Maybe a 3.5, but I really liked this and just kept wanting to read. It was fun to have a book set in Boston / Cambridge, and the main character Casey drew me in.

This book was nothing like I expected — in the best ways. I heard it recommended several times on book podcasts or I would never have picked it up from my library. I thought it would be a fluffy, perhaps whiny, millennial story about a young woman's quarter-life crisis. Sorry for the stereotypes! I was so, so wrong. I am in awe of Lily King's writing here; her prose is so inside the head of the character of Casey that I started feeling what it was like to be 30-something again, single and living alone in a city, wondering what you were going to do with your life. It's 1997. Casey is 31, a waitress at an upscale restaurant in Cambridge (Boston). She's $70,000 in debt thanks to student loans, and she's still grieving, aching, hurting so badly, for her mother, who died suddenly three years ago. Casey is living in a rich person's garden shed because that's all she can afford; the landlord is an ass who is a friend of her brother's. Casey has been working on her first novel for six years. When all her other writer friends have given up and gone for more secure jobs, Casey remains committed to writing. But her writing is stuck and her confidence in her words is failing; the author explains so clearly how one can be obsessed and passionate and MUST write, while also agonizing and suffering over how difficult writing truly is. Casey also meets two very different men she's interested in. But this is not a fluffy rom-com. She's trying to figure out her life, stay committed to her novel and still deal with the death of her mother. I felt every feeling and heartache and melancholy moment of Casey's thanks to Lily King's perfect capture of this young woman's voice. A must read.