This book was exactly what I was hoping it would be. It had a character that was going through tough times that you could totally sympathize with, but who was so much more witty than I could ever be. So you get the humor, you get the life lessons, and you also get some potential romance as a nice bonus. These are exactly the type of books that I crave when I want to read something that makes me feel like an adult, but is still purely entertaining.
Darcy is almost 30 when the unimaginable happens. Her husband dumps her. The only logical thing to do (in her opinion) is to go home to her parent's house. While she is expecting to show up unannounced but completely welcomed into outstretched and loving arms, she finds an empty house that her parents are contemplating selling because, turns out, they have already moved to a different state and were just too afraid to tell her. This is almost too much for poor Darcy to handle. Yet, as we all have probably come to realize, Darcy can handle more than she anticipated.
At first, Darcy spends her days in self-imposed isolation, scrolling through the neighborhood's online community board for entertainment after reading all of the National Geographics in the house. But as time goes on, and she's gone through most of the canned food readily available, she begins relying on the community board as a way to make money: first by selling her childhood possessions, then later by finding lost pets and testing potentially dangerous playground equipment.
Once Darcy is finally forced out of the house and out of her comfort zone, she begins making human connections again and finds friends in unexpected places. While helping others and letting herself be helped, Darcy grows and heals and realizes that what she thought was the end of the world might actually have been a blessing in disguise.
This book was like a more grown-up version of Smothered by Autumn Chiklis with a dash of The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella. |
