By Laura Dave

“With Nick, you had freedom.” Freedom. There was that word again. I had organized my life to hold on to it, hadn’t I? Everyone seemed to think so. Everyone—myself included—seemed to think I needed the possibility of going anywhere at any time, of infinite openness. But I was starting to wonder if maybe I had missed what freedom really looked like. Maybe it had less to do with always having a way out. Maybe it had something more to do with finding the way deeper in.

Wow. This was a really good book. It is about a young travel writer who gets dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Nick, and marries a guy, Griffin, on the rebound. Or did she, by just luck, pick…right? They move back east so he can fulfill his dream of opening his own restaurant. The worldly big city California girl is a fish out of water in his unsophisticated backwater Massachusetts town. On top of her getting to know her new husband she has to deal with a hostile mother-in-law, a jealous “perfect” ex-girlfriend, An irresponsible genius brother-in-law with two unruly twin boys who move in with them, losing her job, I’ll stop there. In the midst of all this, her ex’s sister and her best friend show up to stir the pot swiftly followed by her ex who has “seen the light” and wants her back. She is confused.

This is a love story with doses of humor, crises, and insights into the nature of love and learning who you really are and what you really want. It’s too short and the two twin boys are a nightmare.

September 7, 2020