My Year of Casual Acquaintances - Ruth F. Stevens - ★★★.¾
AUTHOR: Ruth F. Stevens
GENRE: Contemporary Fiction
PUBLICATION DATE: September 26, 2024
RATING: 3.75 stars.
In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction about a woman who grabs a second chance at living life on her own terms. An atypical story structure, an interesting but somewhat unlikeable middle-aged lead, almost a “coming-of-age’ kind of arc, well-written secondary characters. This book took time to grow on me, but once it did, I enjoyed it. Recommended!
Plot Preview:
When Margaret’s husband of twenty-eight years divorces her for another woman, she decided to give up everything from her present life and begin anew. She changes her name to Mar and moves into a smaller home on the beachfront. This doesn’t mean that she has forgiven her husband. Au contraire, she is quite bitter about what happened and hence very judgemental in her behaviour towards everyone.
As her job offers flexible work-from-home timings, Mar joins a swanky health club to explore new adventures. Every month, she meets a new person – either through her work or through her club – who ends up impacting her life and teaching her something new. Will these experiences help Mar let the past go?
The story comes to us in Mar’s first-person perspective.
Bookish Yays:
💐 A coming-of-age kind of story for a middle-aged character – unusual and refreshing. The first-person writing helps further in understanding Mar’s point of view.
💐 Mar is not an easy protagonist to like, especially at the start. She is uppity, judgemental, a bit selfish, and much stubborn. It is tough to root for her when she's jumping to rude opinions about everyone around her. Of course, all this only proves that Mars is human and that age doesn’t necessarily mean maturity. I love how she grows in awareness and selflessness as the book progresses. She shows that it is never too late to change our behaviour and learn from others.
💐 Love the story structuring. It is almost episodic, with the chapter divisions being in a one-month-one-acquaintance format.
💐 There are a surprising number of insensitive people in this book who bear grudges for longer than needed. Some are from Mar's family. It goes to show how family isn't necessarily the only support we get. At the same time, I love how Mar has a great relationship with her daughter-in-law – so unusual and wonderful to see this in fiction.
💐 There is a romance angle in the story but it never supersedes the core theme of Mar’s independence. I love how the writing never opts for the ‘romance is the key to happiness’ angle.
💐 Unlike stories where friends or family members form the path towards new happiness, this story hinges its action on ‘casual acquaintances’, as the title clearly indicates. All these strangers becomes a part of Mar’s life for varying short periods, and demonstrate how we can also learn from such short interactions. The variety of the acquaintances is great; they differ in age as well as gender.
💐 Though there are too many characters thanks to the above structuring, they are written in a way that aren’t confusing. It is very easy to remember who is who.
💐 While every interaction has a new realisation to offer to Mar, I appreciate how not every acquaintance led to a positive lesson. It's not a Mitch Albom kind of work where strangers spout philosophical learnings. Rather, the morals are a result of the interaction and not just a part of some random casual-yet-moralising conversation.
💐 Unlike what the blurb says, I didn’t find many laugh-out-loud moments in the story. Even better, I found it encompassing a gamut of emotions, from anger to bitterness to pride to love to despair and hopelessness. It is funny at times, but it is also introspective.
💐 I had read this author’s debut work ‘Stage Seven’, and though it could have done with some finetuning, I was touched by the way she wrote about Alzheimer’s in that book. This book also has some scenes depicting the struggles of a senior citizen with memory issues, and yet again, these are the most emotionally impactful scenes of the entire novel.
💐 Though the prime focus is Mar’s life, the plot covers several themes through her new life choices and the new connections she makes. These include parenting struggles, loneliness, infidelity, judgement bias, bullying, and senior citizen problems. As the themes are spread across multiple characters, they don’t overwhelm the core plot.
💐 The book is 321 pages long, but it is written at a fast pace and the pages flow by quickly.
💐 Petey the dog. As marvellous as all dogs are!
💐 The story ends at just the right cusp of a major change in Mar’s life. This isn’t strictly a cliffhanger, nor is it an abrupt ending as there is enough evidence for us to know what will happen next. I loved the way it was written. No forced tying of all plot threads into a neat bow.
Bookish Mixed Bags:
🌷 The prologue was good, but I didn’t like it for one reason: it offers in advance a look at a key incident coming much later in the plot.
🌷 Through her various attempts at fitness, Mar ends up joining a yoga class as well. It was a relief to see the yoga asanas being referred to by their actual Sanskrit names instead of stupid/rude simplifications such as downward dog or cat camel. At the same time, I wish people would stop using the word ‘yogi’ for anyone who practices yoga. Yogi means something very different: a person with a high level of spiritual insight that others must aspire to, which most common people won’t achieve. Simply going to a yoga class doesn’t make you a yogi. Using the word in fiction gives it greater validity even when it is wrong.
Bookish Nays:
🌵 Mar is 50 but looks 40 – This point is drilled in us again and again. There are so many references to how youthful she is and how she doesn't look her age that it almost begins to sound defensive after a point.
🌵 Too much alcohol, which always annoys me but might not bug other readers. Right at the start, Mar declares that she is genetically immune to getting affected by alcohol, and she goes to prove this right every chance she gets. I found it difficult to reconcile her health and fitness obsession with her excessive alcohol consumption.
🌵 There are a couple of sex scenes in the book. While these are semi-closed-door, the writing in these scenes is a bit too reliant on telling than showing. It felt quite stilted to read. Also, "yoga bondage"??!!?? I can’t even! Please. Just. Don’t! This spiritual practice has already been corrupted in many ways by Westerners (and even some Indians.) Please leave bondage out of yoga!
(There’s also mention of “goat yoga”, which is apparently a newish trend in California. First I heard of “doga”; now this! I am quite annoyed at how the sacred idea of yoga is being twisted into this nonsensical charade. This point isn’t a negative of the book but of the concept itself.)
All in all, I liked this book a lot, though it took some time to grow on me. The start was tough because Mar looked down on everyone. But as she improved, so did my liking for the book. That said, this novel needs to be read more for the characters Mar interacts with than for her alone. Some of these new acquaintances are jerks, but they offers an authentic glimpse of the kind of people we too deal with in real life.
I am very happy that this sophomore novel flows so much better than ‘Stage Seven’, which was the author’s debut. I am keen to know what happens next in Mar’s life, so count me in for the sequel. A preview of it is included in this book, and it seems to be written from Charlie’s perspective – Interesting!
Recommended to readers of women’s fiction who enjoy middle-aged protagonists, an experimental story structure, realistic life lessons, and a somewhat unlikeable lead.
My thanks to WOW! Women On Writing and author Ruth F. Stevens for a complimentary copy of 'My Year of Casual Acquaintances', and for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
The digital version of this book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
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Blurb:
When Mar Meyer's husband divorces her for another woman, she reacts by abandoning everything in her her home, her friends, even her name. Though it's not easy to start over, Mar is young-looking, fit, and ready for new adventures—as long as she can keep things casual.
With each passing month, Mar goes from one acquaintance to the next. Among a fellow gym member down on her luck, a flirty hip-hop instructor, a bossy but comical consultant, a kindly older gentleman... and Charlie, a handsome best-selling novelist who wants more from Mar than she's able to give. She learns something new from each encounter. But can she change enough to open herself up to happiness and true connection?
Surrounded by an ensemble of quirky, endearing characters, Mar follows a tortuous and unpredictable path as she navigates the first year of her reinvented life. My Year of Casual Acquaintances is packed with laugh-out-loud moments mingled with scenes of loneliness and self-doubt that will put a lump in your throat.
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Author Ruth F. Stevens:
Ruth F. Stevens likes to create stories that will make readers laugh and cry. A former public relations executive in New York and Los Angeles, she is a produced playwright and author of a previous novel, Stage Seven, which was a featured selection of national online book club and Alzheimer’s awareness organizations. Ruth is a proud member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Dramatists Guild of America and serves as a volunteer and acquisitions editor for AlzAuthors.
Ruth lives in Torrance, California with her husband. In her spare time, she enjoys travel, hiking, hip-hop and fitness classes, yoga, Broadway musicals, wine tasting, leading a book club, and visiting her grandsons in NYC.
Visit Ruth on her website and consider signing up for her monthly newsletter to receive publishing updates, book reviews, and special offers.
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Check out this book:
Purchase from:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Year-Casual-Acquaintances-South-Bay/dp/168513484X/
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Casual-Acquaintances-South-Bay/dp/168513484X/
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Year-Casual-Acquaintances-South-Bay/dp/168513484X/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-year-of-casual-acquaintances-ruth-f-stevens/1145533426
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This has been a stop on the #MyYearOfCasualAcquaintances blog tour conducted by WOW! Women On Writing. (@womenonwriting on X/Twitter.) Thanks for stopping by!
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