Misanthropic Reese Walker hasn’t left her apartment for 272 days. Her job as an audio book narrator of lesbian romances (mostly) allows her to work from home and that suits her just fine. Her biggest problem is her aggressively nice and kind neighbour, Judith. Her entire social life consists of her sister, lo, who is currently in rehab for alcoholism, and an old friend, David.
When she is forced to answer an unexpected and unwelcome knock on her door, she receives a bill from the rehab of a large amount of money. Fiercely protective, Reese knows she needs to somehow raise the money for Lo. Via David she receives and offer to read a book that may just help her earn the required money. The catch is that she needs to leave her house and record it in a studio in New York under the supervision of the author, Arden Abbot.
Hot, sexy, successful Arden turns out to be something of a micromanager picking on Reese’s pronunciations of words like ‘Sarah’ and ‘and’. Reese is neither happy with Arden’s ‘helpful’ suggestions nor with the fact that Arden is impossibly sweet and attractive. Reese mentally rages against Arden till she realises that Arden is fighting battles of her own.
The story is narrated entirely from Reese’s point of view so we are privy to all her thoughts, feelings and emotions. She is not awfully likeable or dislikeable. Mainly, she is funny in her extreme reactions to ‘people’ and ‘outside’. At some point, we also realise that besides being misanthropic, Reese is also an introvert and cannot handle being around people too much.
Arden is a lovely, lovely lady. In fact, the whole relationship growth between Arden and Reese is skewed in the beginning with Arden making all the effort in both, their professional and personal interactions.
These are two women dealing with their own demons and trying to handle their own imperfections while making the effort to grow and let another person in. That is so heartwarming. We loved that the conflict is totally organic and completely in keeping with the characterisations. It is a situation where, very interestingly, both are right in their actions and expectations and both are wrong in dealing with the other.
But what really makes this book a highly engaging read is the humour. The writing is awesome (though there are a few regrettable typos – but nothing too bad).
This one is a perfectly lovely read with a cast full of likeable characters.
