The premise of this book taking place over one evening at a local drinking hole was intriguing. We sit with Emma as she downs whiskey in her adopted hometown and learn about the locals who are also belly up at the bar with her. There is an overall mood of dread as the book unfolds. We know something isn't right and that something bad has happened in Emma's life and that there will be an issue at the bar before the night is over. Emma weaves us between her memories and what is happening in the bar that summer night. It took me some time to get into the story, but once I was hooked I couldn't put the book down. Sometimes I found the author was a bit too flowery in the descriptions. Learning about what has caused Emma so much grief was heartbreaking. If you like character driven stories this story will keep you engaged. If you are looking for a lot of action and fast pace this is not your book.

3.5 stars.

"It occurs to me that the expression 'the light at the end of the tunnel' carries with it a false idea of forward progress."

This book was hard for me to connect with it. At its core, this is a story about grief. Most of the story takes place at a bar, where the main character goes back and forth between being in the present day and recounting what's going on in the bar and unwinds her story to tell us what happened until now.

The grief this character is feeling is so deep that there's disconnection and numbing which made it very hard for me to connect with the character. If she's not feeling her feelings, it's really hard for me to feel them. I have to imagine them.

While I totally understand that this is an absolutely valid reaction to grief, I feel my feelings so much and so deeply that it was really hard for me to sit with this character with all that's going on both in the past and the present and not be longing for more. I wanted to dig deeper. Deeper into her and her husband too (whom we get to know so little of really.)

I think while the story might be similar to some of Celeste Ng's work, the feeling of this book definitely resonated more with the Claire Messud comparison for me. That empty feeling is so hard for me to reckon and connect with.

With gratitude to netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the premise of Ordinary Hazards - gaining a slice of the Emma's mess of a life over a long night in a local bar with glimpses in to the past to provide context.

What I enjoyed : the build to 9pm and wondering what the "event" would be, how important of a role Emma's dog, Addie, plays, the small gems peppered through (I particularly enjoyed the rambling of transitioning to vs building upon points).

What more I wanted : I didn't feel connected to Emma until the very end, Lucas didn't get enough space to build meat to his character other than a distanced husband, the "reveal" (more could have been done to build the reader's emotional connection to the characters to make this a harder hit).

I feel like I might be in the minority in this, but even with my rating, I encourage others to give this one a go. I look forward to Bruno's future releases.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an immersing book and I loved it so much! The world building and the characters really drew me in and made this a story I couldn't put down!

3.5 stars

My relationship with this book is as complicated as its narrative. On one hand, I really struggled to get invested in the plot, the characters, and the structure. It took a lot longer than I'd have liked for all of these elements to grab me, and that is a function of a looser introductory chapter than I needed. I really could have done with a clearer structure and insight there to grab on faster.

That noted, once I DID get more pieces of the puzzle, I became more invested and rapt. I also developed what is even now - after the fact - a growing appreciation for the application of structure and organization (but that's still tempered by the rocky take off).

There is so much terror and uncertainty underneath the surface of every little instance and choice, and this uncomfortable reality is palpable throughout the last quarter of the novel, especially, but really throughout its entirety with hindsight.

This is creative and challenging, and while I don't have the reverent reaction that I've seen in some responses to this work, Bruno is undeniably capturing a feeling, a condition, and critical aspects of the human condition here.

I'm so impressed with this book as a debut novel. Anna Bruno's writing is incredibly good. I found myself drawn to many lines throughout the book that were inspiring and thoughtful. I did like the technique she used for telling the story over one night in a local bar to be effective. I was excited to read the flashbacks to learn about Emma's story and also wanted to return to the bar to see what happens. The characters were well-developed, especially the dog! Clearly Anna Bruno is a dog lover. I only gave it 4 stars because aside from Emma and Lucas (and the dog), I found myself not caring too much about the other main characters. Perhaps it's because I found them to be mostly unlikeable? The story examines grief and loss in a way that many people will be able to identify with. It's a sad story, but still inspires much hope.

Quietly suspenseful and deeply contemplative, Ordinary Hazards is about a woman who has lost everything and an evening of reckoning with her past and the choices made that led her to the brink of despair. You won't be able to stop turning the pages to discover what happened and where she will go from here.

It's 5:00 PM at the Final Final, a small town bar for locals on the edge of a small town. Emma, a high powered professional and published author, sits down for Happy Hour and hunkers down for an evening of alcohol-infused contemplation and observation. We quickly learn that she is divorced from Lucas, the man that she met on a blind date at the Final Final. She ignores increasingly anxious texts and calls from her close friends and business partner. What has Emma lost, and what is she hiding from?

Ingeniously structured, Ordinary Hazards is broken down with each chapter covering an hour of the evening (5:00, 6.00, 7:00...up to After Hours), As time ticks by on the dusty clock on the bar wall, Emma reflects on the early days of her relationship with Lucas and events leading up to their demise. She also observes the interactions and dramas of the other bar regulars, all of whom are Lucas's childhood friends. She's an outside observer and yet their pasts are intricately entwined.

I think Ordinary Hazards will resonate strongly with readers who enjoy novels about complicated relationships and moving through grief. Highly recommend for Anna Bruno's brilliant writing, keen observation and heartfelt grappling with devastating life events that leave us reeling.

PS: I am in love with Emma and Lucas's dog, Addie. She stole my heart and can keep it forever!

Set in a aptly named bar in a small Upstate New York town, the protagonist in Anna Bruno’s novel Ordinary Hazards slowly reveals more about her past and how she might start to heal from it. In this stunning debut, topics of loss, love, and living in the past all swirl around as readers step foot inside The Final Final: the last bar on the outskirts of a small town.
Bittersweet and evocative, Bruno’s novel will have you sucked into Emma’s memories and remind you that not everything is as it seems on the surface. The non-linear timeline was a bit confusing in the beginning, but eventually made the story so much deeper than it would’ve been if it was linear. It was easy to dip into the story and just continue reading about Emma’s past and how it all culminated into a single night at the bar.
The setting of The Final Final gives that comfort and nostalgia factor of living in a small town, but can also relate to Emma’s preoccupation with the past and things she can’t change. It also lends itself to being the perfect way to introduce all of the main characters in the story and how they all interconnect in some way to each other and Emma’s life.
This book displays all the hardships in life: death, grief, loss, longing, and indifference. All of these attributes fester in Emma and as she remembers each moment of her life that has brought her to the present, she realizes that life is about moving forward, not dwelling in the past.
Without giving too much away, this novel will stay with you for a long time after reading it and is a great choice for fiction-lovers everywhere. Ordinary Hazards is set to come out August 18th and is the perfect end-of-summer book to discuss with your friends or book club!

Ordinary Hazards is sure to be a book club favorite this year. A quick read with nicely drawn characters and engaging plot.

I tried three time to get into this book. Just didn’t do it for me. Sorry. I’m sure others will enjoy it.

I had a hard time getting into this book. For a good quarter of the way through, you're just getting introduced to various characters in the bar with accompanying stories about their lives. You don't really have a good sense who Emma is or why any of these people matter to her, so the story started (at least for me) to feel meandering and the plot felt like it had trouble building momentum.

Things started to pick up by the half way point. Even though I felt like it was pretty clear what had happened to this woman to bring her to this point, there are some interesting twists and turns to move the story along. Unfortunately all of that didn't add up to an ending I was that invested or excited about.

Oddly, the thing found most interesting about this story was Emma's book about storytelling in business and how she built a career out of that topic. Perhaps it was intentional that a character who is so interested in storytelling, would tell her own story in such a vague, roundabout way.

Ultimately I think I just wasn't the right audience for this book. It does have some lovely and touching moments in it (the part with the bird in the bar was quiet beautiful and cinematic), but I found it hard to connect with personally.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes begins in the local bar, The Final Final where a wealthy big city girl who transplanted to a small town is set up by her friend on a blind date with a local guy who is just as surprised as she is. Thus begins their real story. At this time their relationship has ended and she alone is sitting in 'their' bar with 'their' friends reexamining their life along with dealing with the drama of the bar. Each friend has a part in an unimaginable tragedy in their lives. Everyone is dealing with their own demons and guilt the hardest part being forgiving themselves.

Escape the threat of heart disease, diabetes, the opium epidemic and even the Covid pandemic and immerse yourself into probably the most heart wrenching and thought provoking novel of the year. This is a tour de force event weaved with pitch perfect wordsmith and master storytelling. It is engulfed with wit, whimsy and pathos.
Witness a one-act play that unspools over the course of twenty-four hours. It's Emma's thirty-fifth birthday and no-one knows, as she sits upon the barstool in The Final Final ... a small town dive bar at the edge of town. Surrounded by the "regulars" she reflects and ruminates in flashbacks how each interfaced in the relationship between her and ex-husband Lucas.
There was Cal, a successful tradesman, whose wife abandoned him and his daughter Summer ... to essentially become a band roadie. Summer is allowed to sit at a table in the bar until 10 P.M ... she occupies herself with coloring and cut-outs. Martin Yagla ("Yag") is the town screw-up with several breakdowns. Somehow he completed med school in five years, but never practiced medicine ... he's a womanizer and in hock for $10,000 in gambling debt with the imminent threat of "broken bones." Then there's Jimmy, a line-cook at that local greasy spoon. ... who actually was a trained and previously successful engineer out on the west coast. He returned to take care of dying sister and never left. Incidentally, he grew up with Lucas and has always been his BF. And, rounding out the group are the nondescript "Fancy" Pete and "Short" Pete. Emma loved and adored Lucas ... what went wrong?
Emma grew up in a wealthy household in Connecticut (with complicated parental dynamics), graduated from Harvard and left to seek her fortune in San Francisco for five years. She went back to Harvard to obtain her MBA and established herself in Manhattan in her pursuit of wealth. An epiphany occurs ... there is more to life than making money and she moves to a small town in Upstate New York where are drama unfolds.
Anna Bruno weaves a narrative that waxes poetic and explores grief, loss, love and friendship. ... with heavy doses of nostalgia and remorse. As an aside, she touches on the concept that a prestigious academic degree isn't any more important than maintaining principles, sincerity, conviction and a work ethic. Admittedly you will experience sadness and joy ... and don't be afraid to shed some tears along the way. It is hard to believe that this is Anna's debut novel ... I can't wait to read what comes next. Thanks to NetGalley and Atrial Books for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review. Publication Date: September 1, 2020.
( at readersremains.com )

This was a book that slowly crept under my skin. From not liking it all for the first 20%, to being completely swept away by the end my reactions were all over the place while turning the pages. I am not even sure if I could identify the moment when I switched from not caring about a single character sitting in the Final Final to caring about them all and wondering how on earth they were going to go about the rest of their lives. None of them are especially likable, including our protagonist, but they mostly all ended up feeling real to me with the Final Final itself feeling the most real.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A story that takes place over the course of a night at a bar while providing flashbacks into the past few years of Emma's life. There was love, heartbreak, and friendship throughout the story. It was beautifully written and I could feel a lot of Emma's pain as she thought about the death of her son and the end of her marriage.

This is a well-crafted novel about an enigmatic woman whose relationship with her estranged husband and her wildly emotional response to their separation takes place in a neighborhood tavern in an upstate New York town that feels as foreign to her background before she fell in love with and married the thoroughly decent man whose circle of friends , denizens of the Final Final, remains her closest connection to him. It's a troubled one; their loyalty to him is a hurdle she has to jump over in order to be part of that circle again.It's hard to like Emma sometimes, and while her response to the separation she initiated and is still conflicted about difficult to understand she's worth sticking with.

What an amazing book. I’m going to be real honest here and say I had completely forgotten the premise of the book when I started reading it, so I started off completely confused. I think it was this not knowing that helped me fall in love with “Ordinary Hazards.” I was forced to keep reading to find out what everything was all about and where the night was taking us, and all I can say is W O W.

3.5 stars rounded to 3 stars

Well, I am of two minds about Ordinary Hazards, a fine debut novel from Ms. Anna Bruno. There are features I liked very much yet other issues that disappointed me.

First the good stuff. It always piques my interest when I find a novel that is written a bit differently. In this book, the main narrative takes place over one long evening as our protagonist Emma sits in a bar named The Final Final, wondering how she can ever find happiness. There are a number of flashbacks to previous events written in real time to fill out the story. The only other book I have read written in this style is When All Is Said by Anne Griffin. I think Ms. Bruno pulls this off well. I also enjoyed the theme of the story, which basically revolves around what can an individual do to make lemonade out of lemons. This of course is presented in a far more stylish manner than how I just said it. And I loved Addie the dog who has a more profound role than most dogs do when playing relatively minor characters. Finally, the epilogue (entitled “After Hours”) is superb.

Oh, and the title is perfect. A great title.

Why did the book need saving? Well, I had a really hard time connecting emotionally with the characters. For example, Lucas has a prominent role yet we rarely get into his head. I need to be the characters’ heads to fully engage. The other bar patrons get a lot of airplay, but they came off as rather flat to me. I didn’t care much about any of them, except perhaps the little girl Summer and the barmaid Amelia. I have trouble describing my relationship with Emma. I neither loved nor hated her throughout most of the book, but I finally really came over to her side in the epilogue.

Other things that bothered me: Emma ran a hedge fund, and though I often like reading about finance for fun, the part of the narrative directed towards this subject was not interesting to me. I was also bored by the philosophical ramblings that peppered the book. Finally, there was an overall very depressing mood to that one long evening in the bar, and I was dragged down by that.

I see I am in the minority with my boring overall rating of 3.5, but I encourage people to read this book for themselves. Most reviewers so far loved it and ranked it 4 or 5 stars. I have to wonder if timing had something to do with my lowish rating. With the multitude of all the “once-in-a-lifetime-crises” happening in the United States right now, it is sometimes hard to focus enough to enjoy the simple joys of a well written book of fiction. However, I do like Ordinary Hazards enough to want to pick up whatever Ms. Bruno writes next.

My thanks go to Ms. Isabel DaSilva of Atria Books, Net Galley, and Ms. Anna Bruno for an ARC of this novel. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

We all have at least one of the those nights.

A night were everything from your past bubbles up; reminders of the good times bring a spark to your eye, while the bad times seem to haunt your very being. This is one of those nights for Emma; a night of drinks at The Final Final, her dive bar of choice. A bar that she once frequented with her adoring boyfriend turned husband, which she now stumbles out of alone.

As the night goes on, everything she hasn't dealt with over the years comes to a head; old arguments, reminders of deep love, true friendships, unspeakable hurt, misunderstandings, secrets, laughter, it all happened or was discussed here at this bar. As you journey with Emma through her life, as understood through a single pivital night of life, your heart is broken and repaired time and time again.

'Ordinary Hazards' is a standout, Anna Bruno is bringing a new voice to the table of modern literature. So we'd do well to listen.

There are times that you just go into a book blind and come out thinking that what you have just read is so moving, so well done, and so spot on. And them you think this author's writing, her understanding, and way she presents to her reader's this story is so accomplished......and then you notice that this is a debut novel

I believe in all our lives we have dealt with grief, tragedy, and anguish. We ask ourselves the what if question time and time again followed by the if only I had .....

Emma has seen much unhappiness in her life, from a father whose goal to make money seems to have consumed him, to a mother who is both distant and likes alcohol too much. Emma is driven, a graduate of Harvard for both her bachelor's and MBA degrees and she too seems to be consumed by success. How much like her father is she? Then there is Lucas, a man she loves, who owns a sheet rocking company. They seem an unlikely pair but they are something special, they are a couple in love. They have a young son and Lucas, being a kind, receptive person has a bevy of friends. Life is good until it isn't.

However, Emma's success requires her to be away a lot and as time goes on, this facet becomes a point of struggle between the couple. Then tragedy ensues and it is this that forms a wedge between the couple that seems to be unable to be repaired.

Emma relates her story through her thoughts, one night in the local bar she now frequents daily with a number of Lucas's friends. The author has Emma release bit and pieces of her story as we meet and get to know the people who surround her. We also are allowed to see Emma's anguish, how she has to face the questions that plague her, that make her life a series of despair and misery. As all the pieces come together what we really see is a story of how women often sacrifice their life for a career, for money, for prestige and when tragedy strikes are ill prepared for the consequences, for the one thing money can not buy is time, time spent with those you love, time for finding that inner peace, time for making time for the moments one treasures.

It has been a wake up call for Emma and in a way a wake up call for so many women who find themselves consumed with success.

I definitely recommend this book for all who so enjoy a book that bears a message, a book that allows us to realize that our life is a brief period on the earth and the times that matter are those spent with those we love and those who love us.

Thank you to Anna Bruno, Atria Books, and NetGalley for an ARC of this well done novel due out on August 18, 2020.