Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThis Is Not Nothing
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2020
It is difficult becoming an adult, at times, and in particular when you are in your 30’s. Not settled, no profession of means, no permanent relationship, no offspring, just a muddle. Casey feels all of this and more. Full of debt that grows larger everyday, a job as a waitress, living in a potting shed, and writing a novel that is just taking forever.
Casey aka Camila, lives near Boston, commutes to her waitress job in Boston on her banana bike. She has friends, a jerk for a landlord and her book. She tries not to think too much about her top three worries, her mother’s recent death, her huge student loans, and the man she met this summer, a married poet who swept her off her feet. While she is involved in the grief she feels from her mother’s death, she is trying to live, to be kind and care about others, without her need to hide all the feelings. Everything around her feels the cynicism, that is the way to make it through the day.
This novel by Lily King is fresh, vibrant, the characters leap off the page. In this day of digital devices, it is refreshing to have a young woman finding her way with every mistake she makes, but holding onto her dreams. She wants love, a family, but her grief and her uncertainty are holding her back. Casey has two lovers, a promise of a better job, and must make decisions. She is aware of her peccadilloes, and, in this way she is learning her craft. Her writing carries her, and her friends and her work reinforce this need. She has to write she says not because she thinks she has something to say. She writes because when she doesn’t everything feels worse. This is not nothing.
Recommended. prisrob 03-03-2020
