I Used to be Fun
If you've ever stood at a school fundraiser, smiling on cue, while something much louder screams quietly inside you, Jessica Holloway is your woman. At 46, Jess has spent decades folding herself into the shape her family needed. Two near-adult children who take her for granted, a husband who appreciates her but leans on her constantly, and a version of herself she barely recognises anymore. She used to be extraordinary. She used to be fun. Somewhere along the way, both got buried under the laundry. What gives this novel its edge is the specificity of Jess's frustration. She once scored in the top five per cent on her LSAT. That's not a small thing to set aside. When she finally decides to reclaim some of what she sacrificed, taking a job with a gloriously chaotic Seattle lawyer and enrolling in night classes, it feels earned rather than convenient. You're rooting for her from the first page. Summers writes with genuine warmth and a sharp comic instinct. The perimenopausal rage is handled honestly, without being played purely for laughs, and the domestic detail rings true throughout. The novel's cleverest move, though, is what happens when Jess actually gets close to the dream she's been quietly grieving for two decades. It no longer fits. What she finds instead, in a direction she hadn't considered, feels quietly revelatory. This is women's fiction that earns its uplifting ending through honesty rather than shortcuts. Fans of Marian Keyes or Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant will find familiar comfort here, though Summers has her own distinct, breezy-but-perceptive voice. Perfect for book clubs, and especially for any reader who dog-eared Judy Blume as a girl and has been waiting for someone to write the middle-aged sequel ever since.
- Author: Melanie Summers
- Publisher: Indigo Group
- Genre: Literary Fiction
- ISBN: 978-1988891606
- Pages: 308 pages