Just an ordinary night at the local bar.. of so you would expect. Something bad happens.. and this book unfolds in a matter of hours. Going back hour by hours, with different accounts of what happened. My advice is to go in blind! It's definately a binge read, you will be hooked!

A woman sits in a bar over the course of one evening. A tautly well paced novel about how we learn to live with the past and what it takes to move forward.

Emma had a good life but here she sits all evening watching those around her. Slowly the story of Emma comes out and we find out just what it was that led her to this point in life. The story develops at a perfect pace and Emma is a realistic and believable character.

This is a book I wouldn't normally pick up on my own, but this was a wonderful debut that was heartfelt and a warming read. I highly recommend it.

An introspective story of love, loss, grief, and loneliness. I had to remind myself that this story takes place over the course of one night. I really appreciated how the characters were developed and how their lives overlapped. There are a lot of discussable themes in this powerhouse of a book: how many times do we treat something as a hard-defined ending rather than a transition; the exploration of regrets; guilt; and accepting our faults and culpability.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced digital copy in return for an honest review.

I am DNF-ing this one at 38%. I tried, but I just couldn't get invested. Usually I can fly through this type of book but after 4 months of slowly trudging along, I just need to stop. I may try to pick it up again at a later date, but for now, I just can't.

Ordinary Hazards
By Anna Bruno

I did not enjoy a moment of this book. It is my lowest rated title this year and in a very long time.

I read and continued to read trying to find the why. Why was this book written? What am I reading? Are we still talking about this bar? No. At the very end we’re over analyzing a dog’s preference for lamb or chicken. This was the twist of the book.

No. Hard pass
Rating: ⭐️ 1/5

A tale of a small town full of life that is slowly drained by circumstances. Emma is considered successful, she has a good job, lots of money and can go when and where she wants. Emma is considered successful by everyone except herself. As she sits on a bar stool, drinking with people she might call friends, she reflects on her life and the mistakes she made that set her on the same track as her parents. A life she swore she'd never live. Over one night's drinking, Emma and her friends will reveal their secrets as they try to justify their decisions and convince themselves they are happy.
The tone of the book is self reflective. The writing is skillful, you feel as if you are really listening to Emma as she drinks to forget but never can. Anna Bruno had me spellbound soon after I opened the book and kept me reading long after "one more chapter" turned into an all nighter. A lovely book about love and loneliness.

Damn, I loved this book. It's a painful read, powerful, lyrical, nearly poetic. And there's a dog.

Thanks, Netgalley. Damn.

Song/s the book brought to mind: Small Town USA by Justin Moore

Ordinary Hazards by Anna Bruno is a book about nothing and everything at the same time. It takes place over the course of just a few hours, but much of it is Emma reflecting on her life and how she got to where she is at this moment in the small-town bar The Final Final. I love how Bruno slowly unraveled Emma's past while also weaving in her present at the bar. There is a little bit of action which mostly takes place towards the end, but other than that not a whole lot happens. Usually I wouldn't necessarily like a book like this, but for some reason it just worked with this one.

The end of Ordinary Hazards is a real tearjerker and even though I knew it was inevitable, I still ended up shedding tears. I definitely think the pacing is slow, but overall it still moved at a nice enough clip that I wasn't bored while reading it. In fact, I didn't want to stop reading and I could have read it in one sitting if I would have had the time. If you like a good, character-driven slow burn then this is the book for you. It's an impressive debut and I can't wait to see what Bruno writes next!

Thank you to the publisher for my advance review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Interesting premise, but not what I was looking for to include in my subscription box. Good writing, but the whole thing was a bit slow for me.

What a sweet, sad, and believable story of human love, grief, and how we cope.
The entire book takes place one evening in the local bar. Emma nurses her drink, banters with the bartender and other local regulars while reflecting on how she ended up here, now, on this bar stool. The reader is left outside, only allowed a peek in as snippets of info are revealed. Emma met the love of her life, Lucas, at this same bar. He’s still out there somewhere, so we know Lucas didn’t die. Why is Emma wasting herself here, refusing to live, to feel, to face life?
Without judgment, author Anna Bruno does a psychological study of each person on the stage of this little bar: the loudmouth who gambles his money away; the dad who brings his little girl and leaves her at a table to color; the bartender, a young lady who reveals a little much with her clothing choices, who started serving bar underage and now has the wisdom of an old seer. Each character is as rich or as shallow as Bruno’s imagination wills them, and in the midst of it all is this dark cloud, we’re constantly wondering why it’s there. I can’t go into detail without spoiling the premise of the story. Just please, read it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a character study of human interaction, severe and inconsolable sadness, and what a fine line we walk between making it out or drowning under the pressure.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for making it available.)

4.5 stars
Taking place over the course of a single night, Emma is at the neighborhood bar, The Final Final, where she spends most nights with the locals. All except one: her ex-husband Lucas. It’s a small town, yet, they have managed to avoid each other since their divorce was finalized over a year ago.

Emma is a Harvard grad and very accomplished in the field of finance. She grew up wealthy with a father who cared more about money than his family, and a bitter mother who found solace in a bottle. She left it all behind to marry Lucas and live in a small town. They are deeply in love, but old patterns die hard.

Through Emma’s reminiscing, we find out her backstory. We meet the locals, who are all connected with their own stories and struggles. Dripping with atmosphere and foreboding, we know something terrible happened, something so awful it ended a marriage. There are small hints throughout until the devastating reveal. Ordinary hazards can change a life. If only. How do we go on in the face of such sorrow? Is happiness, or at least acceptance and contentment possible?There’s a pervading sadness throughout, but thankfully it is not without hope and redemption.

The writing in this story was absolutely stunning. I loved the descriptive passages and how the author makes me re-think every day colloquialisms. I knew I would like this book from page 2, as the author discusses the concept of time and who your daily hours belong to. The 5 0'clock drinking crew makes their way into the bar, and I felt like I was sitting down with them.
This is a very nontraditional type of story telling. We truly delve into the mind of Emma as she sits at a bar nursing her drink and contemplating her life. We start to learn about Emma, her failed marriage to Lucas and the tragedy that brought about their divorce, as well as glimpses in to the lives of other regulars at The Final Final.
This is not a fast or an easy read, but this book was extraordinarily human. It doesn't offer answers or resolutions, but I think many people will see a reflection of events and people from their own life in these pages.
Pick up this book if you want something with a bit more meat to it.

** 4-4.5 stars **
Publication: August 18, 2020

What a great debut novel from Anna Bruno. This was unlike anything I had ever read and I really enjoyed it.
The entire book takes course over a night as Emma sits in her hometown bar, approximately 9 months after her divorce from Lucas, who she initially met at that exact bar on a blind date. It's a local dive where everyone knows her and Lucas. As she sits there drinking and observing everyone around her, she reflects on her life and details emerge throughout the read of what Emma has gone through.

It was a somber and dark read about love and loss and I couldn't pull myself away from it. The writing was beautifully done and very descriptive. You could feel Emma's pain. Highly recommend! Looking forward to Anna Bruno writing more.

Special Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a novel about Emma. She is sitting in the Final Final, “a backwater townie shithole” bar in upstate New York. Each chapter is another hour spent in this bar as Emma introduces us to the past and present lives of each patron and employee of the bar and basically everyone she ever met, especially her ex husband Lucas. Emma has a Harvard MBA, as we are told many times. She has fled the city for small town life and has formed a very successful hedge fund with a partner. She is also a very successful author and travels constantly for her work. Lucas and his father operate a drywall business.

Although Emma is ostensibly telling the stories about those other people, it’s really all about her, because she is an inordinately self involved woman, but not a very likable or interesting one. She really didn’t deserve her husband, child or dog, and her business partner better watch out. I kept reading because it wasn’t until the end of the book that we find out what happened to her marriage, but this was all pretty dull.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria for sending me the ebook. This is such a well written first novel about Emma, divorced, co-owner of a successful hedge fund, who goes to her neighborhood, small town bar on her thirty-fifth birthday. Tonight she drinks through her grief as she replays the memory of her family, especially about her ex husband, Lucas. There’s is such an unlikely love affair, but the author paints so a full picture of their relationship that you can’t help but root for them. A great set of bar characters and brilliantly structured story about how a life can change so much in just one night as the bar itself, as well as Emma, will never be the same after this evening.

It’s 5 PM and Emma is at the local dive bar called The Final Final. She has become a regular and an alcoholic after the disintegration of her marriage to the love of her life, Lucas. We learn more about what brought Emma to this point as she hangs out with the other drinkers who also happen to be Lucas’ friends from high school. The story takes place over the course of one night that will leave Emma changed forever.

The crew at The Final Final are interesting but I found Emma to be uninteresting. This book isn’t long at 208 pages on my iPad but I found it to drag for 170 pages of it. We get lots of background on Emma but I just didn’t connect with her at the start so I didn’t really care. There were some glimpses into the potential for a great story as we get snapshots of Emma and Lucas’ past but the only thing that saved this for me were the last 50 pages. This novel is an extremely slow burn for not a lot of action at the very end.

For one night in a small town bar, the story unfurls as divorced Emma reflects on past tragedy and heartbreak while other bar patrons’ stories are being remembered in flashbacks. Emma’s authentic voice made me feel her grief and pain. Though I initially did not care at all for Emma, I was slowly drawn into the atmosphere of the bar and intertwining lives.

I think the thing that I disliked most about this book was that the narrative takes place over one evening. The characters were shallow and I just could not connect with them. Plus you factor in the ramblings that played a primary role throughout the book, and I was just over it. Just a very depressing read that never managed to catch my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

This book takes place over the course of one evening in a small town at The Final Final Bar. Over the course of the book we hear Emma, the main character's story, as well as the stories of others in the town. This is a story of loss and greif but also a bit of hope. It is a book you savor and one you will want to read again.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.