Review by Booklist Review
Grieving her mother's recent death, newly heartbroken, and shouldering crushing student debt, Casey lives in her brother's annoying friend's moldy Boston coach house, working on her novel in the mornings and waitressing at a swanky Cambridge restaurant at seemingly all other hours. A book-release party introduces two points of the love triangle Casey becomes entangled in: novelist Oscar, and one of his workshop students, Silas. Widowed, Oscar approaches Casey with a mix of awe and apprehension, and Casey falls easily into his life with his two young sons. Silas, meanwhile, intrigues with his humor, chipped tooth, and leather jacket, but hits the road just when he shouldn't. The romance will draw readers in, but Casey's journey as a writer, alone, is the book's strongest magnet. Despite being reminded of the foolhardy notion that women writers could have anything to say at all, she finishes a draft and isn't prepared for what this unleashes. With deep and sensationally wrought feeling Casey feels her anxiety as swarming bees, and as if she ""swallowed"" her dead mother King (Euphoria, 2014) leaves no barrier between readers and smart, genuine, cynical, and funny Casey. A closely observed tale of finding oneself, and one's voice, while working through grief.--Annie Bostrom Copyright 2020 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
King's, elegant, droll follow-up to Euphoria traces an aspiring novelist's effort to find herself after turning 30 and losing her mother. After a series of lovers and moves, Casey Peabody ends up alone in Boston, Mass., with nothing to hold onto. Her commitment to writing each morning keeps her at a dead-end waitressing job that barely covers her grungy rented room and the minimum payments for the massive debt she incurred for her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Her devastating grief for her mother, whose unexplained death occurred while vacationing abroad, can only be assuaged, she feels, by finishing the novel she's been working on for six years ("I don't write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don't, everything feels even worse"). She begins dating the successful writer Oscar Kolton, as well as one of his students, and finds new inspiration in the romances ("Usually a man in my life slows my work down, but it turns out two men give me fresh energy"). Facing the impending loss of her apartment, she fears that living with one of her lovers would expose her "blighted" dysfunction. While King's resolutions of Casey's financial, emotional, and creative challenges don't feel uniformly convincing, the nimble, astute narration appeals. This meditation on the passing of youth is touching and ruefully funny. Agent: Julie Barer, the Book Group. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
King, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Euphoria, delves into what is frequently first-novel territory but with the skill and assurance of a seasoned pro. As the title suggests, the narrative follows Casey, a 31-year-old writer living in Boston, who is attempting to complete her first novel while debating between two potential romantic partners, both of whom are also writers. Successful author Oscar is widowed with two sons, while Silas is a quirky aspirant with whom Casey shares a strong sexual charge. A stressful day job as a server at a high-end restaurant, a recent heartbreak, health and financial concerns, and grief over her mother's recent death all add to Casey's dilemma over whether to choose the more stable and established Oscar or the seemingly less reliable Silas. With the novel set in the 1990s, missed and unanswered phone calls drive the plot in ways that wouldn't be possible in today's world. VERDICT While never minimizing the seriousness of Casey's personal problems, the book is also funny and romantic and hard to put down, full of well-observed details of restaurant culture and writer's workshops. It's hard to imagine a reader who wouldn't root for Casey. [See Prepub Alert, 9/9/19.].--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Boston-area waitress manages debt, grief, medical troubles, and romantic complications as she finishes her novel."There are so many things I can't think about in order to write in the morning," Casey explains at the opening of King's (Euphoria, 2014, etc.) latest. The top three are her mother's recent death, her crushing student loans, and the married poet she recently had a steaming-hot affair with at a writer's colony. But having seen all but one of her writer friends give up on the dream, 31-year-old Casey is determined to stick it out. After those morning hours at her desk in her teensy garage apartment, she rides her banana bike to work at a restaurant in Harvard Squarea setting the author evokes in delicious detail, recalling Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter, though with a lighter touch. Casey has no sooner resolved to forget the infidel poet than a few more writers show up on her romantic radar. She rejects a guy at a party who reveals he's only written 11 1/2 pages in three years"That kind of thing is contagious"to find herself torn between a widowed novelist with two young sons and a guy with an irresistible broken tooth from the novelist's workshop. Casey was one of the top two golfers in the country when she was 14, and the mystery of why she gave up the sport altogether is entangled with the mystery of her estrangement from her father, the latter theme familiar from King's earlier work. In fact, with its young protagonist, its love triangle, and its focus on literary ambition, this charmingly written coming-of-age story would be an impressive debut novel. But after the originality and impact of Euphoria, it might feel a bit slight.Read this for insights about writing, about losing one's mother, about dealing with a cranky sous-chef and a difficult four-top. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
