Writers & Lovers by Lily King follows our main character Casey, as she navigates life one year after her mother's sudden death, she is lost, broke, in-debt and very much living with her fair share of demons and past traumas.
Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. - Goodreads
I went into this book with high expectations, I mean a book about someone trying to make it as a writer as she navigates life and its many obstacles in her late thirties and early twenties? yes please. However I found the first half of the book very much irrelevant with the writer trying to get us to know more about the main character's past, but its mostly stories about forgettable characters, useless interactions and little notes that are supposed to show us how well-lived our main character is, and also how many unlucky encounters she has had with love and writing throughout her early twenties as a young adult.
I found the main character really likable at some points and at others really unlikable due to the fact that she was stuck, with the knowledge that she is stuck and without wanting to do anything about it or rather feeling like she cannot do anything about it. The whole backstory about her mother, and the idolization factor really didn't make sense considering she literally abandoned her as a child with a father that did not turn out to be a very good person. I understand the significance of her mother as a character in the 90s but I did not exactly appreciate her.
After opening the book I discovered it was a love triangle and that put me off a bit, however when you get into it, it doesn't really read as a love triangle which was a relief for me. And unlike the usual love triangles, I had an obvious favourite that I rooted for since the very beginning which didn't make it very hard for me, especially after the "real baby making hips" comment.
The book really picked up for me in the third act I would say and it's mainly because suddenly Casey has snapped out of her loop and was being unstuck by the help of so many factors that came one after the other and I could then really sympathise with her inability to improve and the effort she has to make to be a person, something I can really understand and relate to as a person in their late twenties trying to navigate life and hopefully become a writer myself.
I truly appreciated Casey getting a somewhat happy ending despite all the chaos, and to see her finally being able to breath after feeling suffocated for so long. But I would have loved for a slower ending to the final love interest and their blossoming relationship just for my own personal enjoyment hehe.
It was overall a fun read, but albeit not a very memorable one for me at least. rounded up to 4 starts from 3.85.
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?
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