When I think of women's fiction, I think of books just like this one, that gives all the feels and can satisfies just about every reader's heart. This is a perfect books to snuggle up with on any day.

Thanks so much for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.
I have been a fan of Camille’s writing for quite a while, so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed this book.
It was a quick read with all the charm you would expect from her. Would recommend for the 30+ mom clubs!

I was excited to dig in to Camille Pagan's newest release, Don't Make Me Turn this Life Around. Her book I'm Fine and Neither are You was one of my favorites from a few years ago so I had high expectations.

Libby, a mom of two twin girls, had been a glass-half full kind of mom, wife, sister, and boss. When her ten year anniversary of being cancer free should have brought a sense of relief and a great mood, Libby found herself floundering in life. Libby convinces her husband, Shiloh, to go to Puerto Rico to visit a friend that is major influence in her life. A trip that was to bring her family together, a break from reality, and a chance to reconnect with her husband turned out to be anything but what she had hoped for. But in the end, the trip turned out to be just what her and her family needed.

Pagan is not afraid to dig in to tougher topics which I appreciate. Even though there are lighter parts of the story, this is not one for the faint of heart. There are many relevant topics which include loss of a parent, cancer, childhood illness, marital relations, and mental health to just name a few.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.


Note: Sorry for the delay in my review. My mental health turn a bad turn and I am trying to catch up with my reviews.

I did not realize that this was a follow up to a previous book although I was able to read it as a standalone. There were heavy topics all set in Puerto Rico. It was a short book and not one I loved. Thanks to Netgalley for this review copy.

Don't Make Me Turn this Life Around is an enjoyable read. The main character, Libby, is trying desperately to find her way in life and at the same time keep everything afloat for her family. When the family vacation gets derailed by a tropical storm, Libby constantly looks towards the universal signs to make sure that she and her family will not only survive the vacation but also be better and happier when it is all over.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy of this novel.

This one was both witty and sad, an odd combo that worked for me. Lots of life lessons next to a beautiful setting, a great summer read

DNF - Did not finish. I decided not to keep reading this title because I did not connect with the writing or plot. Thank you, NetGalley and publisher for the early copy!

Thank you Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review. This was a lot heavier than I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed it. Libby is a 40 something cancer survivor. She goes into a cancer checkup fully expecting her cancer to be back, but she's not as happy as she should be when she finds out she's been cancer free for 10 years. She convinces her family to go on a last minute trip to an island off the coast of Puerto Rico when a friend offers them a free stay. Little does Libby know that a tropical storm is on the way.

Libby is so relatable. She's unsure and questioning her marriage. She has teenage twins who fight and don't listen to her. She's trying to help her family have fun and work on her marriage when the storm strikes. I loved her dedication to the family and how she stopped at nothing to get them back to safety. This was very fast paced and kept me interested the whole time. I learned afterwards that this is a sequel, but it wasn't hard to follow.

I really enjoyed this. It was a quick engaging read and I will definitely be checking out more books from Camille Pagan.

Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around is centred around Libby - 10 years cancer free, her pilot husband, Shiloh and her twin girls. Libby should be ecstatic to be cancer free - but she's not. She feels her husband is distant, her daughter has type 1 diabetes which is challenging to them all, her brother is getting a divorce and her father has just died. As a family, they decide to go back to where Libby and Shiloh met and fell in love, for a holiday. However, a storm is brewing - will their family unit survive intact?

This book eloquently deals with the ups and downs of family life, married life and other heavy hitting topics such as cancer and grief, and Camille's writing portrays these mid life crises beautifully. I am a huge fan of Camille's writing - she easily conveys all the emotions when reading any of her books, but particularly Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around made me laugh, cry and also gain perspective over my own life at the same time. This is such a witty and relateable book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

This book was underwhelming. I was excited to read it and thought the storyline sounded cute. After being cancer free for 10 years, Libby feels like her life is going south, so she decides to take a spontaneous trip with her husband and two daughters to the place where she met her husband and began her battle with cancer. It sounded like the perfect summer beach read, but unfortunately it fell short for me. The plot was so repetitive and predictable. I hate giving bad reviews, but unless you are a huge Camille Pagan fan, I would steer clear of this one.

A witty, humorous and light read about mid life, children, marriage and all the crap that comes with it! The main character is easy to relate to, full of sarcastic positivity, who learns that sometimes you just need to feel your feelings and let the hard stuff in so you can deal with it.
There are adventures both tropical and harrowing, but Pagan steers her characters through to become better versions of themselves. An easy, fun summer read that I looked forward to picking up each time I had to put it down.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of this book in exchange for a review.

I really enjoyed this one! The characters felt so real and the situation was relatable. Once they got to Puerto Rico I really enjoyed the suspenseful story and wanted to find out what would happen next. I got through this one so quickly.

Look forward to reading more from this author!

⭐️⭐️ Review - Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around by Camille Pagán

This review has been made possible thanks to @NetGalley and @amazonpublishing for providing me with an Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is about Libby, her husband Shiloh and their twin teenage daughters as Libby comes to terms with her father's recent death, her 10 year anniversary of being cancer free and the divorce of her brother and his partner. In order to celebrate her 10 year remission anniversary, they take a trip to Puerto Rico, where she and her husband met, and visit an elderly friend Maligros. They get caught in a hurricane, their daughter is running low on insulin for Type 1 Diabetes and their friend Marigros has a heart attack.

While I have read some of Pagan's work before, I was disappointed with this novel. Libby is described as a sunny, positive person, who can bring light to any room. However, in the novel, she only complains, worries, reprimands her daughters and whines to her husband about their lack of a sex life. This novel only pushes her further into herself and feels wildly depressing and unpleasant. It didn't feel like I was reading this novel to escape anything in my life, I only felt trapped in their situation and wished I could make it stop. I didn't find the 47 year old's life interesting, relatable or worth telling a story about. Libby felt stuck in her situation and beyond a change in her perspective, hadn't changed by the end of the book.

Personally, I would not read or recommend this novel again, but if a middle-aged woman is going through a dry spell with her partner, feeling stuck at work and would like to read about how it could always get worse, this is the book for you.

I thought this would be easy brizzy summer read. But not really. I just cried...
This was a goood book. Thanks to Netgalley for thi one.

Don't Make Me Turn this Life Around by Camille Pagán
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Genre: General Fiction (Adult) | Women's Fiction
Publication Date: May 11, 2021

Don't Make Me Turn this Life Around by Camille Pagán is a wonderful book about hope, family, and figuring it all out. I hadn't read "Life and Other Near-Death Experiences", but felt I was able to read this one as a standalone book. I will be reading the previous book because this one was so good.

This book made me feel all the feels! I can relate the main character, Libby, in so many ways and I enjoyed her story so much!

I loved this book and all it brought with it! I thought the story was fantastic and there was so much depth to it! Also, I found it truly funny and reading it brightened my day!

I'm so grateful to Camille Pagán, Lake Union Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Engaging from beginning to end, Don’t Make Me Turn this Life Around explores a key impasse in Libby’s life, who lost her mum as a child to cancer, who recently lost her dad, who has been cancer-free herself for 10 years and yet, who when all things suggest she is living her best life, don’t seem to add up to the grand sum of happiness.

For Libby, her own contentment seems as elusive as an itch she can’t scratch and when her and hot husband Shiloh appear to be drifting apart she knows she needs to do something to capture the magic again. Therefore, traveling back to Puerto Rico where she first met and fell in love with Shiloh seems like the only thing she can do to get her groove back for both herself and her family, including twin daughters Charlotte and Isa.

In many ways, this novel had the kind of pulse that negated necessary action kernels n(although it did appear to be one disaster after another) because it dabbled in a type of pragmatic realism that highlighted that happiness is fleeting. For the most part, this undercurrent was consistent with the strong themes of survival woven throughout.

Whilst I couldn’t come at the two children and had early moments of severe frustration in terms of Libby pandering to their entitlement and tolerating their off-the-cuff rudeness, I appreciated Libby’s existential crisis, and whilst she didn’t rush out and buy a Porsche or snaffle a 20-something mistress, she was certainly in the headspace to entertain the idea. And that’s the thing about mid-life; there is a certain acknowledgment and acceptance of the fleeting nature of life and therefore reverence of death, irrespective of other ‘close-call’ death narratives that have occurred prior.

Hence, Libby’s story was quite powerful from start to finish, and whilst it won’t likely appeal to young adult readers, I highly recommend it to lovers of family drama and romance as this is one of those peace – time war stories and tales of survival: In love, in marriage, in role, out of role and in terms of self-discovery that provides perspective and food for thought.

Overall, this was a good read that ended without needing the bang and fanfare, emphasising that being in the moment and being open and honest about how we feel is often the key to staying true to who we are.

I had to remove this title from my TBR because I have too many novels committed to.
This rating is not a reflection of the author's writing or the quality of the book. It was simply cut from my stack as I have other books that are calling to me more strongly.

I was able to travel back to “la Isla del Encanto” when I read Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around. @camillepagan delivers such a great read, perfect for summer. This book will have you crying from laughter, and then crying from sadness or from relating to a parenting moment. You can tell she knows PR and her research/experience shows. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

After 13 years of being cancer free, Libby should feel total elation. Yet with her husband becoming distant, the recent death of her dad, and her daughter’s health condition, she decides to take her family to Vieques, back to where she fell in love. Then a tropical storm strikes. Can the worst disaster they’ve faced be the best thing that’s happened to them?

While this book can be read as a stand alone, I highly recommend reading Life & Other Near Death Experiences first as it sets the stage for these amazing characters.

DNF @ 33%

Much like Libby has no energy for life anymore, I have no energy to read this book. I know things will brighten up later, but right now I'm getting a severe case of secondhand depression with no end in sight.

The cover screams summer, fun, cheer, and laughs.. well.. this story leaves you in tears! This was my first book by Camille Pagan and although I found the characters annoying at some points, I was truly invested in the book and was very sad when I reached the end. The fact that I didn't read the other book first, did not affect my experience reading this one.