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A stylistic love-child of sorts, Joanna Trollope meets Marian Keyes, rich with vulnerable, mildly self-informed people, seeking a way forward in lives that feel filled with hardships. That aren’t necessarily so. If one could just shift perspective, ever so slightly.

The story is written in the voice of Rachel Murray, our first person POV narrator, who narrates the present from her current position in the future. Describing the years of her youth – her traumas, heart aches and oh-so-complicated world as she navigates her “Uni” days, in Cork, Ireland, where figuring out who in her circle of “friends” is the adult, and who has not yet reached that point, is a trial in and of itself.

Rachel, in this time period, is comfortable describing herself, with her typical dry wit, as a “pretty cheerful person by nature. Emotionally dependable, Iike a good horse.” Unreliable narrator aside, in the eyes of this reader, Rachel is anything but cheerful and reliable. Emotionally fragile, longing for love and acceptance, and desperately afraid of abandonment – Rachel is an abundantly typical twenty-year old. And one who will need sometime to get to know herself, and the truth represented by her cohorts (most of which you will find named “James”).

Brimming with sweetness, this is a coming of age story that will likely resonate – whatever your age, and ground traveled, in your own heartfelt journey.

I loved this book, and couldn’t help but cheer for poor, misguided Rachel,her dramas, and her clumsy naïveté. A not-so-forgotten reminder for each of us, from where we came, and where we now see ourselves going.

A great big thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Note: This book will be published by Knopf on June 27, 2023.