Author: Ellen Hawley
Published: December 30th 2014 by Kensington
Format: eBook; Paperback, 240 pages
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and Kensington for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
I am a bit too jaded to take the rantings of a twenty five year old new mother and recently separated woman seriously. Abigail and Thad have an up and coming life until their baby was born and Thad decided that he was not ready for the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood. This now leaves Abigail (not Abby) with the only choice of moving back in with her parents, figuring out her laundry, lying on applications to get waitressing jobs, using a babysitter as a therapist, using her daughter Rosie as a cuddle toy so she (Abigail) can get to sleep and realizing that losing weight through the urgings of a non-corporeal guru are not the best life choices, yet they seem to be all that she has.
With a lot of humor and a lot of redundancy, the read follows Abigail’s rhetoric about having to grow up and become responsible. Granted, the cards were stacked against her when she was comfortable in a life with no education and no job skills, but she did not need them, she had been an underground restaurateur and Thad was making a good living in his white dress shirt world, but when that came crashing down, she had to grab her bathroom scale and admit that she was no longer the person that she wanted to be.
With a seven-month-old baby girl that is the center of her life, Abigail must forge a new path, one that came from an unexpected place and has given her the artistic outlet that she longed for. Outside of her daughter Rosie, her passion has always been cooking. So why not use this as the starting point. Why not show her ex-husband that the food he always critiqued is what others need to feel healthy and whole. Why not write a newspaper column with humor and insight to teach the young and hip how to cook without being afraid of an oven or an egg. Why not create a world around your passion.
As I said, I may be jaded and could not fully connect with Abigail, but I could acknowledge the struggle that she endured and I can appreciate and respect the woman that she became. Will this book be for everyone, I cannot say, but there is something familiar about it, a little like The Undiscovered Goddess by Michelle Colston, but at the same time, it does stand on its own. It will resonate with some and others will shake their heads in wonder and frustration.
With a lot of humor and a lot of redundancy, the read follows Abigail’s rhetoric about having to grow up and become responsible. Granted, the cards were stacked against her when she was comfortable in a life with no education and no job skills, but she did not need them, she had been an underground restaurateur and Thad was making a good living in his white dress shirt world, but when that came crashing down, she had to grab her bathroom scale and admit that she was no longer the person that she wanted to be.
With a seven-month-old baby girl that is the center of her life, Abigail must forge a new path, one that came from an unexpected place and has given her the artistic outlet that she longed for. Outside of her daughter Rosie, her passion has always been cooking. So why not use this as the starting point. Why not show her ex-husband that the food he always critiqued is what others need to feel healthy and whole. Why not write a newspaper column with humor and insight to teach the young and hip how to cook without being afraid of an oven or an egg. Why not create a world around your passion.
As I said, I may be jaded and could not fully connect with Abigail, but I could acknowledge the struggle that she endured and I can appreciate and respect the woman that she became. Will this book be for everyone, I cannot say, but there is something familiar about it, a little like The Undiscovered Goddess by Michelle Colston, but at the same time, it does stand on its own. It will resonate with some and others will shake their heads in wonder and frustration.
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