30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3
Book 1/30
I was genuinely surprised by how much I liked this. I very rarely really connect to contemporary fiction anymore that doesn’t have some sort of genre twist or queer angle. But this was just so charming!
I would advise not reading the blurb, because it spoils something that doesn’t happen until over 60% of the way through the book.
The Sweet Spot follows several women in Manhattan whose lives are either falling apart or finally coming together. We’ve got Lauren, whose family has the lucky opportunity to move into a classic brownstone in Greenwich Village for free, a brownstone that sits atop a neighborhood bar called The Sweet Spot. Lauren has just been commissioned to make custom pottery pieces for an upscale NYC boutique run by a famous decorator named Felicity who has her own TV show as well. Lauren is overwhelmed and needs help, so invites her mother Evelyn to NYC to stay with them, even though the two are not close. And then there’s Melinda and Olivia: Melinda, the angry ex-wife of the man that Felicity had an affair with, who is now having his baby; and Olivia, the woman Melinda gets fired when she has a full on (planned) revenge meltdown in Felicity’s boutique.
So that sets the stage for what is a pretty normal but sweet and charming story about family and friendship.
I thought for sure I would be giving this one 3.5 stars and selling it on Pango, but I would read this again. It really turned a corner for me when Melinda and her extremely angry POV came into play. She shot adrenaline into the story, and in many ways acts as its center for the rest of the book. I found myself wanting to move into the brownstone and just be among all that family chaos.
I’ll definitely be reading more from this author in the future.
