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narcissia's review
3.0
3.5
The beginning of this book had me completely confused. It begins in medias res. Conversations are happening that I do not understand, actions are going down that I also don't really get, places are being described that I can't picture in my head, and some of the Aussie slang added to my complete bewilderment. The first chapter is in present tense, then chapter two begins a year earlier and is told in past tense. But when the book catches up to itself, it stays in past tense. And that is kinda weird. Some chapters jump back even further into the past to disclose things that happened to Holly and attachments she made in her childhood and teenage years.
For a while I had no idea what this book was about or where it was going. I was confused by foreign politics and jobs and confused about plot. It was a little slow to hook me. But as I kept reading, Holly grew on me. I witnessed her issues and her growth. I witnessed her expectations of people and her inevitable disappointments in them. I witnessed her coming to terms with her losses and her expectations. She has to cut some things loose in order to keep the things she values most of all. And I really like the way that her decisions play out in the end. I like the ending. But I do not like the last two paragraphs. They added an extra layer of ambiguity that I feel is not only unnecessary, but also a little infuriating. So I have a little bit of mixed feelings about some things - the beginning bits and the slowness there, the last couple of paragraphs, a few other little things here and there - but overall, I liked it.
The beginning of this book had me completely confused. It begins in medias res. Conversations are happening that I do not understand, actions are going down that I also don't really get, places are being described that I can't picture in my head, and some of the Aussie slang added to my complete bewilderment. The first chapter is in present tense, then chapter two begins a year earlier and is told in past tense. But when the book catches up to itself, it stays in past tense. And that is kinda weird. Some chapters jump back even further into the past to disclose things that happened to Holly and attachments she made in her childhood and teenage years.
For a while I had no idea what this book was about or where it was going. I was confused by foreign politics and jobs and confused about plot. It was a little slow to hook me. But as I kept reading, Holly grew on me. I witnessed her issues and her growth. I witnessed her expectations of people and her inevitable disappointments in them. I witnessed her coming to terms with her losses and her expectations. She has to cut some things loose in order to keep the things she values most of all. And I really like the way that her decisions play out in the end. I like the ending. But I do not like the last two paragraphs. They added an extra layer of ambiguity that I feel is not only unnecessary, but also a little infuriating. So I have a little bit of mixed feelings about some things - the beginning bits and the slowness there, the last couple of paragraphs, a few other little things here and there - but overall, I liked it.
nagam's review
4.0
[Review originally posted on Rather Be Reading]
As a social worker, Holly’s main focus is mental health patients. To get through her long, long days where she often feels overworked and under-appreciated, she has her best work buddy, Nick. He’s clever and understands her, and often they are paired up together to visit patients. At home, Holly lives with her supportive, kind, geeky boyfriend Tim. She’s excited for all the things they get to experience together and enjoys spying on her next door neighbors.
Holly balances present day (as a young 20-something) with flashbacks from the past. It’s a bit difficult at first to figure out what’s happening in her life, but I settled into the rhythm of Buzo’s intelligent writing quickly. Holly’s battling a lot of things. She’s still reeling from the death of her father who died when she was 15 years old. Her mother is difficult and their relationship isn’t the best. She feels more connected to her high school best friends than she does to her own family, especially since her mother tends to favor her younger brother, Patty.
To avoid dealing with the past (in which there’s a vague story about a boy named Liam that Holly was in love with for a long time), she throws herself into her work. All of her attention and effort are focused on her job. She’s a perfectionist and feels like she can “fix” everyone else.
But what she doesn’t realize is that she needs to heal.
She’s never allowed herself time to properly grieve any of the big circumstances that have happened in her life. She’s always pushed forward. She pretends that life will just carry on. She struggles with accepting change, especially when she begins to realize that her friendships are a blurry version of what they used to be. But what she wants is for her friendships and the people in her life to stay the same, for no one to ever change. It throws her off kilter when everything begins to shift.
Holly’s story, while a simplistic one, is very realistic. As a 27 year old lady, I could very much relate to what Holly was going through. In my personal life, I’ve absolutely struggled with severed friendships and moving on. I’ve cried on countless occasions over people that I no longer see or talk to because we’ve just grown apart. Change is evil. I also fear a lot of things for the future; I have personally never lost a parent or grandparent, so anytime someone is sick or hospitalized, I freak out and go crazy. My family is very close and I just shut down. Essentially, Holly was so focused on fixing everyone else that she didn’t even realize she had all these barriers built up around her to protect her from anything bad that could happen.
This was my second read by Laura Buzo and while the writing was sometimes a bit abrupt when I was sorting through changes in scenery or flashbacks, I still felt incredibly connected to Holly. I really, really enjoyed reading about someone I could relate to so well. Holly is just an ordinary girl going through ordinary life things. I felt very involved in her well-being, and had such a good grasp on her friends, family, coworkers, and even clients. Buzo did what she does best in Holier Than Thou – she explored the life of someone who’s extremely relatable and told her story in a way that causes you to step back and examine your own.
As a social worker, Holly’s main focus is mental health patients. To get through her long, long days where she often feels overworked and under-appreciated, she has her best work buddy, Nick. He’s clever and understands her, and often they are paired up together to visit patients. At home, Holly lives with her supportive, kind, geeky boyfriend Tim. She’s excited for all the things they get to experience together and enjoys spying on her next door neighbors.
Holly balances present day (as a young 20-something) with flashbacks from the past. It’s a bit difficult at first to figure out what’s happening in her life, but I settled into the rhythm of Buzo’s intelligent writing quickly. Holly’s battling a lot of things. She’s still reeling from the death of her father who died when she was 15 years old. Her mother is difficult and their relationship isn’t the best. She feels more connected to her high school best friends than she does to her own family, especially since her mother tends to favor her younger brother, Patty.
To avoid dealing with the past (in which there’s a vague story about a boy named Liam that Holly was in love with for a long time), she throws herself into her work. All of her attention and effort are focused on her job. She’s a perfectionist and feels like she can “fix” everyone else.
But what she doesn’t realize is that she needs to heal.
She’s never allowed herself time to properly grieve any of the big circumstances that have happened in her life. She’s always pushed forward. She pretends that life will just carry on. She struggles with accepting change, especially when she begins to realize that her friendships are a blurry version of what they used to be. But what she wants is for her friendships and the people in her life to stay the same, for no one to ever change. It throws her off kilter when everything begins to shift.
Holly’s story, while a simplistic one, is very realistic. As a 27 year old lady, I could very much relate to what Holly was going through. In my personal life, I’ve absolutely struggled with severed friendships and moving on. I’ve cried on countless occasions over people that I no longer see or talk to because we’ve just grown apart. Change is evil. I also fear a lot of things for the future; I have personally never lost a parent or grandparent, so anytime someone is sick or hospitalized, I freak out and go crazy. My family is very close and I just shut down. Essentially, Holly was so focused on fixing everyone else that she didn’t even realize she had all these barriers built up around her to protect her from anything bad that could happen.
This was my second read by Laura Buzo and while the writing was sometimes a bit abrupt when I was sorting through changes in scenery or flashbacks, I still felt incredibly connected to Holly. I really, really enjoyed reading about someone I could relate to so well. Holly is just an ordinary girl going through ordinary life things. I felt very involved in her well-being, and had such a good grasp on her friends, family, coworkers, and even clients. Buzo did what she does best in Holier Than Thou – she explored the life of someone who’s extremely relatable and told her story in a way that causes you to step back and examine your own.
maggiemaggio's review
4.0
4.25 stars
I am so conflicted about how to rate this book. I gave Laura Buzo's first book, Love and Other Perishable Items, 4 stars, but I liked Holier Than Thou so much more, even though I don't think it's quite a 5-star read for me.
Holier Than Thou was completely not what I expected, in fact I don't know if I've ever read a book like this before. It was messy and screwed up and painful, but it's so much like real life it was almost eery. My guess is that this might be a book that's difficult for some people. The main character is 24-ish years old and she's really in the midst of figuring her life out. As a 28-year-old I've gone through (ok, am still going through) that period and I feel like anyone who's in high school or college and hasn't reached that point might not realize what it's like (or just be scared shitless by this book). On the other side, if someone's too far past that point, or was lucky enough to miss that stage, it might be hard to relate to, too.
The story is written between chapters alternating between the past and the past. That sounds weird, but the story starts with a disturbing (Holly is a social worker and she's out on a tough call) chapter and then switches to a year prior when Holly moves in with her boyfriend Tim. The story than has chapters from when Holly was in high school and university and in the year since she's lived with Tim.
I absolutely loved Holly and pretty much everything about her. Her relationship with Tim was just so early-20's typical and honestly kind of boring (but in a really good, relatable way). Holly works as a social worker in a bad neighborhood and, although I've never been a social worker, her boss and coworkers (from the good ones to the bad ones to her work spouse, Nick) just rang so true. Holly's flashbacks to high school and dealing with her dad dying of cancer (which seemed incredibly accurate, my grandfather's death was so similar it was weird) and a crush on the cute popular boy were also so just normal. Even small things like Holly needing to listen to music on her commute, but then sometimes not listening to music because she feels so disconnected just rang so true to me.
To me this is what "new adult" should be. A normal girl in a normal relationship with normal friends just trying to figure out her relationship with her boyfriend, her relationship with her family, her relationship with her friends and coworkers, and what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I loved this story and I really wish someone would buy the rights and publish it in the US so more people could read it.
I am so conflicted about how to rate this book. I gave Laura Buzo's first book, Love and Other Perishable Items, 4 stars, but I liked Holier Than Thou so much more, even though I don't think it's quite a 5-star read for me.
Holier Than Thou was completely not what I expected, in fact I don't know if I've ever read a book like this before. It was messy and screwed up and painful, but it's so much like real life it was almost eery. My guess is that this might be a book that's difficult for some people. The main character is 24-ish years old and she's really in the midst of figuring her life out. As a 28-year-old I've gone through (ok, am still going through) that period and I feel like anyone who's in high school or college and hasn't reached that point might not realize what it's like (or just be scared shitless by this book). On the other side, if someone's too far past that point, or was lucky enough to miss that stage, it might be hard to relate to, too.
The story is written between chapters alternating between the past and the past. That sounds weird, but the story starts with a disturbing (Holly is a social worker and she's out on a tough call) chapter and then switches to a year prior when Holly moves in with her boyfriend Tim. The story than has chapters from when Holly was in high school and university and in the year since she's lived with Tim.
I absolutely loved Holly and pretty much everything about her. Her relationship with Tim was just so early-20's typical and honestly kind of boring (but in a really good, relatable way). Holly works as a social worker in a bad neighborhood and, although I've never been a social worker, her boss and coworkers (from the good ones to the bad ones to her work spouse, Nick) just rang so true. Holly's flashbacks to high school and dealing with her dad dying of cancer (which seemed incredibly accurate, my grandfather's death was so similar it was weird) and a crush on the cute popular boy were also so just normal. Even small things like Holly needing to listen to music on her commute, but then sometimes not listening to music because she feels so disconnected just rang so true to me.
To me this is what "new adult" should be. A normal girl in a normal relationship with normal friends just trying to figure out her relationship with her boyfriend, her relationship with her family, her relationship with her friends and coworkers, and what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I loved this story and I really wish someone would buy the rights and publish it in the US so more people could read it.
romcm's review
5.0
Bawled my eyes out through the entire thing. I can see how some people might not relate to her normality. But it was like she writing this book using my diaries as her primary research.
lavaplant's review
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This gets harder to read but damn it is JUST so good
Holly’s emotional immaturity masquerading itself as strength is SUCH a thing I WISH I SAW INTERROGATED MORE IN BOOKS
Holly’s emotional immaturity masquerading itself as strength is SUCH a thing I WISH I SAW INTERROGATED MORE IN BOOKS
tehani's review
5.0
Another interesting YA-marketed novel - definitely a coming of age story, although the protag age is not always the general YA range. I wonder if I liked it so much because I've already lived it, and whether teens will have the same engagement without the experience?
nematome's review
4.0
4 1/2 stars
It’s only rarely that I’ve encountered a writer like this, who so skillfully encourages the reader to participate. Laura Buzo’s writing in this book may appear simple and straightforward, but it’s deceptively so. Not only does she seamlessly weave together three different timelines, she achieves the perfect balance between what is stated and what isn’t. She gives us just enough. Instead of spelling out exactly how Holly feels, she leads us directly to our own emotions and memories. As a result, this book will be a very personal experience for a lot of readers. I know that it was for me.
And the most impressive thing is that even as she’s pulling off these rather complicated feats in the background, she’s achieving a heartbreakingly simple and straightforward tone for Holly in the foreground. Holly, who will joke and seem almost bland as she tells us about her father’s slow death, or the boy she loved but never got to have, or how her friends are slowly slipping away, or how she constantly wonders about what might have been. She’s been labeled a survivor, a success, a do-gooder. She has a rigid set of rules that she feels accountable to all the time, but which are completely unrealistic. She’s a woman of steel. As a card-carrying member of that tribe, I can utterly relate to how hollow that label really is. In fact I related to this book in so many ways; the prospect of discussing them all is overwhelming. This book just fits right inside my skin.
This book made me remember:
Having my own place for the first time: it was tiny and dingy but it was mine. Quoting The Simpsons to anyone and everyone. Listening to hours of Tori Amos. How I used to feel about having kids. All the friends that flowed into and out of my life. How impossible it was hold on to any of them, no matter how much I might have wanted to. That one person who I’ll never be able to forget, even though I probably should. Working in public service: facing the gruesome side of humanity every day and finding not always appropriate ways to cope with that. Watching my friends work in the private sector. Believing I could make a difference. Realizing that I probably never would. Breaking rules I thought were set in stone. Meeting the one, several times. Never knowing for sure if I made the right decision about anything. Regretting.
This is one case where I actually feel like I got much much more out of this book because I read it as an older adult. I can look back at my early twenties now and realize that losing friends happens all the time, to everyone (and really, it never stops sucking). I can see how pointless it was to second guess decisions that could never be re-made. I can see that I’m a public servant through and through and it was fulfilling to me, even if I didn’t make a difference. I can see that all of those rules that I held so dear were really just holding me back. And I can see that the real steel isn’t earned by holding it together indefinitely. The real steel is earned by falling apart and then putting yourself back together again.
Reading this as an older adult had another effect on me too – it made the ending about one hundred times more devastating, because I could feel everything that was ahead for Holly. I love ambiguous endings - so much so that a few of my friends refer to them as “Catie endings.” This ending is without a doubt a Catie ending. Holy moly but did she give it right to me. With a side of chips. She gives us Holly’s deceptively strong outer walls, her rapidly rising tide of grief and regret, and just as the first cracks are starting to show, just as we get a glimpse of how deep that pool goes; it’s over. This is a beautiful, poignant, devastating snapshot of the early twenties experience and it is one of my favorite reads of the year.
Perfect Musical Pairing
The Jezabels - Easy To Love
(Random aside the first: I want her hair so badly. Random aside the second: their drummer is SO TALENTED.) My friend Reynje made an amazing playlist for this book, which is how I got introduced to The Jezabels. I could have picked so many of their songs (and indeed, their latest albums have become like my soundtrack for this book), but I chose this one because I’m pretty sure it’s just longing distilled. This song all about running into that person you can’t have and trying to do anything not to regret, even though you can’t stop. When the lead singer says “please, just let me be easy to love” and I think about Holly it just about guts me.
Tatiana, Flannery, and I each had something different to say about this book at The Readventurer.
It’s only rarely that I’ve encountered a writer like this, who so skillfully encourages the reader to participate. Laura Buzo’s writing in this book may appear simple and straightforward, but it’s deceptively so. Not only does she seamlessly weave together three different timelines, she achieves the perfect balance between what is stated and what isn’t. She gives us just enough. Instead of spelling out exactly how Holly feels, she leads us directly to our own emotions and memories. As a result, this book will be a very personal experience for a lot of readers. I know that it was for me.
And the most impressive thing is that even as she’s pulling off these rather complicated feats in the background, she’s achieving a heartbreakingly simple and straightforward tone for Holly in the foreground. Holly, who will joke and seem almost bland as she tells us about her father’s slow death, or the boy she loved but never got to have, or how her friends are slowly slipping away, or how she constantly wonders about what might have been. She’s been labeled a survivor, a success, a do-gooder. She has a rigid set of rules that she feels accountable to all the time, but which are completely unrealistic. She’s a woman of steel. As a card-carrying member of that tribe, I can utterly relate to how hollow that label really is. In fact I related to this book in so many ways; the prospect of discussing them all is overwhelming. This book just fits right inside my skin.
This book made me remember:
Having my own place for the first time: it was tiny and dingy but it was mine. Quoting The Simpsons to anyone and everyone. Listening to hours of Tori Amos. How I used to feel about having kids. All the friends that flowed into and out of my life. How impossible it was hold on to any of them, no matter how much I might have wanted to. That one person who I’ll never be able to forget, even though I probably should. Working in public service: facing the gruesome side of humanity every day and finding not always appropriate ways to cope with that. Watching my friends work in the private sector. Believing I could make a difference. Realizing that I probably never would. Breaking rules I thought were set in stone. Meeting the one, several times. Never knowing for sure if I made the right decision about anything. Regretting.
This is one case where I actually feel like I got much much more out of this book because I read it as an older adult. I can look back at my early twenties now and realize that losing friends happens all the time, to everyone (and really, it never stops sucking). I can see how pointless it was to second guess decisions that could never be re-made. I can see that I’m a public servant through and through and it was fulfilling to me, even if I didn’t make a difference. I can see that all of those rules that I held so dear were really just holding me back. And I can see that the real steel isn’t earned by holding it together indefinitely. The real steel is earned by falling apart and then putting yourself back together again.
Reading this as an older adult had another effect on me too – it made the ending about one hundred times more devastating, because I could feel everything that was ahead for Holly. I love ambiguous endings - so much so that a few of my friends refer to them as “Catie endings.” This ending is without a doubt a Catie ending. Holy moly but did she give it right to me. With a side of chips. She gives us Holly’s deceptively strong outer walls, her rapidly rising tide of grief and regret, and just as the first cracks are starting to show, just as we get a glimpse of how deep that pool goes; it’s over. This is a beautiful, poignant, devastating snapshot of the early twenties experience and it is one of my favorite reads of the year.
Perfect Musical Pairing
The Jezabels - Easy To Love
(Random aside the first: I want her hair so badly. Random aside the second: their drummer is SO TALENTED.) My friend Reynje made an amazing playlist for this book, which is how I got introduced to The Jezabels. I could have picked so many of their songs (and indeed, their latest albums have become like my soundtrack for this book), but I chose this one because I’m pretty sure it’s just longing distilled. This song all about running into that person you can’t have and trying to do anything not to regret, even though you can’t stop. When the lead singer says “please, just let me be easy to love” and I think about Holly it just about guts me.
Tatiana, Flannery, and I each had something different to say about this book at The Readventurer.
heykellyjensen's review
2.0
2.5.
Holly suppresses every feeling. Despite having recently dealt with losing her first true love/best male friend and less-recently, the death of her father after a long and painful illness, Holly hasn't allowed herself the opportunity to grieve, to get angry, to feel anything about either situation. It's through her time living with new boyfriend Tim and her time bonding with her charming co-worker Nick that Holly beings to see and understand how important it is to not only open up to other people, but to open up to herself.
Buzo's writing moves fluidly from the present to the past -- the present being Holly in her early 20s and her past starting in her mid-teens forward -- but because Holly is so disconnected from herself and the events that have brought her to this place, I had a very hard time connecting to her. She's so far removed from herself that I found my reading experience feeling like she was herself telling me a story of herself, rather than telling me about herself without the safety of a story. It wasn't raw or painful but somewhat dull and, at least for me, easy to dismiss. It was sad, no doubt, but that was about all I could press into it.
That said, there's something effective in this writing style because it gets directly to the heart of who and what Holly is. She IS this removed and distanced from her past. We get this immediately and we follow it through to the end when she has the realization that This was further amplified through the relationships Holly made in her post-loss life: her romance with Tim is very quiet and not really explored in the story and she keeps Nick at an arm's distance until the very end. It is, of course, Nick who ends up helping Holly tap into those unexplored feelings.
Of all the characters, Nick was my favorite. He was quirky and charming but also level-headed and offered an ear before he offered a mouth to Holly. In other words, he was a real and honest friend, and I loved when Holly had that moment of realization. It was about this point -- maybe 2/3 of the way through the story -- where I finally figured Holly out and was eager to see her get through this.
This would be a neat book to pair with CK Kelly Martin's COME SEE ABOUT ME since they tackle grief and figuring out what lies ahead for those who are young but not teenagers. I didn't think Buzo's book was as strong, but it was still enjoyable.
*Thanks to Catie for passing this one along to me!
Holly suppresses every feeling. Despite having recently dealt with losing her first true love/best male friend and less-recently, the death of her father after a long and painful illness, Holly hasn't allowed herself the opportunity to grieve, to get angry, to feel anything about either situation. It's through her time living with new boyfriend Tim and her time bonding with her charming co-worker Nick that Holly beings to see and understand how important it is to not only open up to other people, but to open up to herself.
Buzo's writing moves fluidly from the present to the past -- the present being Holly in her early 20s and her past starting in her mid-teens forward -- but because Holly is so disconnected from herself and the events that have brought her to this place, I had a very hard time connecting to her. She's so far removed from herself that I found my reading experience feeling like she was herself telling me a story of herself, rather than telling me about herself without the safety of a story. It wasn't raw or painful but somewhat dull and, at least for me, easy to dismiss. It was sad, no doubt, but that was about all I could press into it.
That said, there's something effective in this writing style because it gets directly to the heart of who and what Holly is. She IS this removed and distanced from her past. We get this immediately and we follow it through to the end when she has the realization that
Spoiler
her mother, who she always felt she needed to guide through loss, was actually handling loss and grief very healthfully and effectively.Of all the characters, Nick was my favorite. He was quirky and charming but also level-headed and offered an ear before he offered a mouth to Holly. In other words, he was a real and honest friend, and I loved when Holly had that moment of realization. It was about this point -- maybe 2/3 of the way through the story -- where I finally figured Holly out and was eager to see her get through this.
This would be a neat book to pair with CK Kelly Martin's COME SEE ABOUT ME since they tackle grief and figuring out what lies ahead for those who are young but not teenagers. I didn't think Buzo's book was as strong, but it was still enjoyable.
*Thanks to Catie for passing this one along to me!
nataliya_x's review
4.0
Does literature need to be the mirror of our own selves in order for us to enjoy it? This is what kept running through my mind during the few hours I spent curled up on my couch, having finished an unbelievably draining month of Inpatient Medicine, with this book as my celebratory companion.
"A nurse and a social worker took fifteen minutes out of their shitty thankless job in the roughest corner of town, sat on a couple of milk crates drinking coffee, flopped their real selves out of the cement and both liked what they saw."It seems that the whole point of young adult literature now is writing a protagonist that the reader should be able to relate to. Actually, scratch that. It may be the point of most literature. As I look through reviews of so many books that I've read, I keep seeing the sentiments expressed over and over again - 'I SO could relate to the protagonist!', 'The heroine reminded me of myself during this time of my life!', and 'I could easily see myself in the character!'
Perhaps this is why young adult literature is becoming so increasingly popular. After all, almost all of us have been through high school, have met wonderful friends, have fallen in love feeling that this is "it", had our heart broken a few times, felt young and invincible and idealistic. So many of us got the round two of this experience in college - sheltering us for few more precious years from what is waiting 'out there'. These are the experiences most of us can easily look back on, remember, rehash, sometimes see through glasses rose-tinted by the distance of a few years or sometimes a few decades. The point is - most of us had these, and so most of us can RELATE. (*)
(*) (On this note, is this why so many YA heroines are the talentless idiots who magically turn into Mary Sues and are secretly the absolute BEST without even realizing that? Is that the only thing that the writers/publishers think we can relate to? Sadly, I think we readers may have been patronized and underestimated. But this is the conversation for another time and place).
Now, this book is what is apparently called the New Adult genre (as opposed to the *Young* Adult and not *Old* Adult, despite the unfortunate implications of this name). Apparently these kinds of books are for the new young college grads who have been removed from the safety of high school and college and now are expected to sort their lives out in the 'outside' world. And it can be big and scary and uncertain and hostile and overall not exactly what you hoped for. It's no longer sufficient to just have potential; it is time to live up to that potential now. That's the idea, from what I understand.
But from reading the reviews of this book before I even got my hands on it (Thanks, Catie!) I saw the pattern - the lack of relatability, so to say, for many readers. Apparently, Holly's experience is not universal. And what more, many of the people reading this book are not even at this stage of life yet. They lack the distance and rosy-tinted glasses of been-there-done-it-and-survived that allow you to read this book with the level of enjoyability that it can carry. If you haven't lived it yet, can you actually understand it and see its flaws and non-flaws? Maybe you need to be a slightly 'older' adult to enjoy it? It seems that Catie thought that, in the lovely review that made me want to read this book, and I think this, too, from the overwhelming life experience of my twenty-eight years of life (that was sarcastically tinged, by the way).
"I my fug I had walked right past a police cordon, erected because of a suicidal woman on the roof of the hospital. [...]What is this book about? Well, it's about the experiences of Holly Yarkov, an Australian brand-spankin'-new social worker who, like an adult she's supposed to be, has a real job (but also IMPORTANT AND IDEALISTIC!), an apartment of her own(crappy as it may be), a perfect live-in boyfriend, and a circle of high school and college friends.
I generally kidded myself that so much separates me from these people. That's how I managed to come to work every day. But one of these fine days it could be me. These strong core muscles of mine, the shiny steel... it could all come crashing down."
"I had been calm, strong and compassionate for all the fractured souls and grieving families that were my daily bread at Elizabethtown. I could feel my compassion seeping out, my cynicism and hopelessness hardening, baking themselves onto the pan."
And then Holly gets to learn, like all of us eventually do, that even the most idealistic job can be a burden, that perfect boyfriend has very human flaws, that friends drift away, family may not need you to be their pillar of strength any longer, and that, basically, you are not as much of a center of the universe as you have been thinking. You may be the hero of YOUR story, but in the grand scheme of life you just may be a peripheral character, an extra, a face in the crowd. And how do you make your peace with it? How do you fit in this new mean world?
"There was no script to follow for a friend who had gone MIA. If you get dumped by a lover there is a script. You grieve intensely, you cry, you don't eat for a few weeks, you take a deep breath and you move on. But the whole left by an absent friend never really closes over. You never stop missing them or wondering what the fuck happened."In terms of relating to Holly as a reason to like this book - I do a bit, actually - but not entirely. I stopped depending on my parents at a rather young age, I tasted real life before heading off to college and so post-college life was not a surprise. But on the other hand, having been to college and grad school for 8 years straight does give you a perpetual student mentality, a way to remain, at least partially, in a somewhat protective bubble.
And having gone to the medical school where I did, I was taught to absorb idealism and altruism with every fiber of my body, to be proud of the changes I can make in the world - but having experienced medicine now as an actual MD, in a busy county hospital, no less, I can easily see what Holly refers to when describing her less-than-glamorous moments of a life as a social worker for mental health services. The frustration, the understaffing, the underfunding, the lack of understanding, the long draining days - it's all there, all taking your idealistic view and desire to help others and turning it onto its head. It was making Holly lose her compassion. It was trying to turn me into a tired and callousy person. It was reminding me of trying to not break under pressure, to preserve a bit of self that you like. This much I can relate to. This was what made this book feel real for me.
"By then the paramedics were well and truly over it, and I didn't blame them. I'd had nothing to eat since the honey toast Tim had made for me at 7 a.m. and now it was 3 p.m. Neither had I peed in that time. (*)"And this was also reminding me of what it was like being younger and less experienced and making mistakes and choices that may seem like too much compromises at the moment - because life demands that. It reminded me of how many of my friends have moved into their post-college careers that included things I could not bring myself to care about - all while I continued to keep trudging on the road to change the world, in my rosy-tinted view of the universe, while my friends were dismissing medicine saying that it's not where the money is any more and me looking at them incomprehensibly and going - 'what money? I don't care!' and feel at those moments - wait for it... wait for it... Holier than thou! I guess that was the relatability factor that I found in this book, and it worked for me, and did not work for others, and it's all okay since the New Adult experience does not have to be the same for everyone. Most things are not there for everyone to relate to, and that's quite alright.
(*) Dear Holly, I will share a life-saving advice that I received from one of the surgeons on how to survive residency - 'Sleep whenever you can. Eat whenever you can. Pee whenever you can. Follow these three rules - and you're golden.' This has been my mantra since.
This book is one of those that do not have a real ending. It's interrupted halfway through, and we are not sure exactly what are the decisions that Holly will make. And that's also was fine by me - after all, New Adults have quite a few choices to make once they figure out how to cope with this world, and Holly leaves this story with quite a few of them open to her, and I trust her to make the best choices for herself, or else fail and start over, because that is all a part of growing into the Old Adulthood, after all. 4 stars and recommend - especially if you are a bit closer to 30 than 20 and have been down some of these roads before.
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Recommended by: Catie
kyleg99's review
3.0
Buzo is a skilled writer, who makes it difficult to stop reading. I read this one extremely quickly. Unfortunately, I found myself disappointed with this one. While there were components of the story I could relate to, it felt . . . lacking. Like there was so much build-up to nothing really. We spent so much time getting to know Holly, her life, bits of her personality, for a conflict to emerge at the end of the book that is "resolved."
I suppose it speaks to how anticlimactic real life can be, but it felt unsatisfying for the narrative. All along the way, seeds are planted speaking to the problems in Holly's present life, just to suddenly become this life crisis and be temporarily resolved. This book felt half-baked and I wish there was more. A lot of this felt true to real life, but not always in a way that made for a great novel.
Buzo's ability between her first book and Holier Than Thou to keep me unable to put down and keep me engaged throughout save this for me, but ultimately I can't rate this one higher because I felt a distinct lack of emotional connection and walked away unsatisfied with the narrative, specifically the rushed conclusion.
I suppose it speaks to how anticlimactic real life can be, but it felt unsatisfying for the narrative. All along the way, seeds are planted speaking to the problems in Holly's present life, just to suddenly become this life crisis and be temporarily resolved. This book felt half-baked and I wish there was more. A lot of this felt true to real life, but not always in a way that made for a great novel.
Buzo's ability between her first book and Holier Than Thou to keep me unable to put down and keep me engaged throughout save this for me, but ultimately I can't rate this one higher because I felt a distinct lack of emotional connection and walked away unsatisfied with the narrative, specifically the rushed conclusion.