Friday, January 3, 2020

The Roxy Letters by Mary Pauline Lowry


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3.5 Stars

Oh Roxy. With all of your “goddess” and “Venus” and “grrrrrl” (and not like the “grrrrrrl lemme tell you” but like every time a female was referenced) talk I should have really wanted to punch you in the face. But dangnabbit you made me laugh so I was able to simply chalk it up to . . . . .



I requested The Roxy Letters because it was compared to Bridget Jones' Diary. In case you aren’t familiar with how I operate . . . .



Despite most of the “if you liked, then you’ll loooooove” comparisons completely missing the mark, I never learn my lesson and fall for that trick almost every time. (I also request nearly every book with a house on the cover or the mere hint that it will be about some sort of hillbilly criminal element, but that doesn’t apply here so we’ll save that discussion for another occasion.) The shout-out to my darling Bridget is actually not a terrible one here (I have no idea why my other pal Bernadette was thrown in because huh? wha????) as the “letters” Roxy pens to her ex-boyfriend Everett are actually more “Dear Diary” style since she delivers very few of them. And as I mentioned above, her antics often made me chuckle. From attempting to take down the “man” (a/k/a Lululemon), to finding herself possibly joining some sort of fingerbanging sex cult, to dating 30-year-old skateboarding manboys, to battling the tweakers and the mobile meth lab parked next door, to becoming a better friend, to maybe growing up – all while attempting to . . . . .



Roxy could certainly be pegged as a millennial Bridget.

I wish I had the capability of slooooooooowing down rather than plowing through books or reading more than one thing at a time because I think I would have enjoyed this even more in smaller doses. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, because 3.5 Stars obviously means I did. Rounding down because of a spoilery issue at the end regarding Roxy’s decisions on dating. ACTUAL SPOILER AHEAD – DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW. The one thing Roxy made pretty clear throughout the entire story was that she wasn’t fond of children. There was absolutely ZERO reason for her to feel bad about saying no to a date with someone who had kids. While I understand that one date does not equate marriage/step-parenting/etc., I also understand why she wouldn’t even want to waste her time and risk the potential of catching feelings for someone she couldn’t see herself with for the long-term. There is NOTHING selfish about a woman (a) not wanting to have children or (b) not wanting to co-parent someone else’s.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you, NetGalley!

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