Leave Me, by Gayle Forman
I am wayyyyy behind in blogs. This is due to a busy time a work and to accidentally stumbling across the show Breaking Bad which I have spend a LOT of time binge-watching over the past few weeks. Happy to report that addiction is over (having finished the show) and I’ve delved back into my stack of unread books. And without further adieu…
I honestly thought I was going to hate this book. Some random First-World-Problems white woman has a heart attack, then during recovery finds she can’t cope with her unsupportive husband, high-maintenance twins, and absentee BFF, and decides to “disappear” by running away from home. Gack!
Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a charming little story about our FWP woman finding her way back to health and self-love, while forging an eclectic group of new friends who accept her for who she is, despite her obvious guarded secrets. It’s a Goldilocks story, where everything done is just right. All the characters are developed just enough for you to quite like them, without going so far that they seem artificial. The adventures are just enough to be interesting and believable, and not so much as to be utterly ridiculous. Even her coping with leaving her young children results in just enough angst to be sympathetic without being nonsensical. It’s a perfect weekend read, and will probably take you just about that long to finish.
Fun side note – I wasn’t sure about the validity of the word “unsupportive” so I asked my husband by way of the following question: “Is unsupportive a word? As in I have an unsupportive husband?” He didn’t laugh nearly as much as I did, nor did he answer my question, so I googled it instead, and take a look at the number one auto-fill suggestion:
…Google knows…
Ah, life, you make me laugh.
Rating: borrow it, it’s a nice read.
I loved the description as a “goldilocks” story. I vaguely think I may have read this…….