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.