She takes a break and comes home to her rural hometown due to feeling like huge parts of her are simply “blank”. I would like to extend a special thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for providing me with this amazing digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest thoughts. Summary: If aliens were to alight here and try to work out the human female, I think this view of life should be the one they get. There was a part about 85% of the way through that I remember liking and thinking, “aww maybe this will have a strong ending!

Special thanks to Edelweiss, Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book for an honest review.

Kate Clayborn, if you’re reading this, please make this a series and have the next one be about Evan or Olivia so I can die happy.

Also, the book is able to really clearly distinguish between how others see Georgie, how Georgie sees herself, and how the people who love her see her, and yet combine all three for a fully-realized, three-dimensional character. And I should add that it’s not wrong to want to either have or read about heavily PIV-cantering sex. Because of the demands of work coupled with the demands of home life, people’s “cracks” are more visible; people may not show up as their most polished selves.After four essays about Christmas (suitably split between pro- and anti-) we get some travel journalism, all peppered with la Keyes' suitably laconic, dry and incredibly breezy style of writing. I mostly loved the grump and the sunshine as they were both bright and vibrant (in different ways) and I love what they brought out in each other. Little ones will love pressing the sound button and joining in with each classic song in this range of sing-along books.