Poppy's going through it in Ann Garvin's newest work. And boy, was I here for it. Go check it out on Kindle Unlimited!

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

I felt very stressed throughout this book, with Poppy's money problems at the forefront. She was a little too quirky for me. I felt this book also bounced around randomly, as though Poppy would interrupt her train of thought with another train of thought. It felt like not much happened in the beginning and then a whole bunch of stuff happened quickly near the end. There were some supporting characters that helped keep my interest.

Not quite what I hoped for - not so light, though entertaining. Poppy frequently behaved as a person in her late twenties, and a lot of things could have been solved way earlier if she just thought it through more, Additionally, a couple of times I felt like the author didn't believe in the reader's way of thinking so some things were over-clarified and explained in more detail than needed (for instance, relationship with men from her past).
Nevertheless, it was interesting to read about people who help the set immensely but are not always acknowledged.
Thanks to NetGalley and Amazonbooks for an opportunity to read this book.

Review:
‘There Is No Coming Back From This’ is about Poppy Lively. Poppy is a 50 year old single mother who is on the verge of losing everything. She was screwed over by her accountant, who ran off with her life savings, and now Poppy might lose her house and won’t be able to afford her daughter’s college. After bringing her daughter to the airport, she comes across her ex-boyfriend, Three, who offers her a way out. He’s a producer now, so he offers her a job in Wardrobe for a movie he’s producing. This job might just save her from going to prison.

I really enjoyed the story, although it took me a while to really get into it. I didn’t like how basically everything happened in the last few chapters. Even though she was annoying at times, I really liked Poppy. Still, it was an enjoyable, fun and even a little mysterious book.

Rating:
3.75 stars

Quote:
“Women learn to be pleasing—often their lives and livelihoods depend on it.”

I don't know how it's possible that I have only just now read a book by Ann Garvin, but I'm not mad that it was There's No Coming Back from This. I also don't know what I was expecting, but this was the perfect mashup of mysteriousness, women's fiction, romance, humor, and general adorableness. The small dog Kevin really stole the show for me, but I couldn't help but love Poppy as well. She is a Midwesterner through and through and being from Minnesota myself, I was thoroughly delighted by the fact that Garvin had her be from Wisconsin. This entire book was a true delight from the storyline all the way down to the characters, and Poppy really grew as a person between the beginning and end.

The audio for this was also incredible, and Andi Arndt was able to perfectly nail the Midwestern Wisconsin accent that Poppy piles on in one scene. I honestly think listening to this made me love it even more, and it is a Kindle Unlimited title, so I highly recommend checking out the audio if you have it! There's No Coming Back from This was the perfect read for escaping real life which made it incredibly easy for me to knock it out in basically one day. It was interesting to me that the author chose to use the name "Three" for one of the characters, and now I am desperately curious as to why she did this. I may have only just finished, but I'm already looking forward to my future reread which I will most definitely be doing.

Poppy, a single mom, is on the verge of losing everything, she lost all of her savings, about to go bankrupt and lose her house. Her daughter is getting ready to move out, and Poppy is doing her best to make sure her daughter can continue her education and not come back to absolutely nothing. Luckily, while Poppy is taking her daughter to the airport, she comes across an ex lover who offers her a way out of this mess. He offers her a job in Los Angeles in costumes on a movie set. Poppy may not have any experience but any one can figure out how to sew a button!! Poppy arrives to LA and finds it fairly difficult to make friends because who trusts the newbie?? However, she stumbles across a problem that needs to be solved. She uses mistrust as her advantage to make things on the movie set right.

My thoughts: This book was very different for me. It’s the first Women’s fiction book I’ve ever read. I loved the main character's personality, she’s older, trying to fit in with the younger crowd and makes terrible jokes. She very clearly has no clue what she’s doing and is a terrible liar which I found hilarious. The plot was a little slow for my liking but was very well developed. I felt as though this story and Poppy shed a light on what parents often sacrifice for their children, and on how difficult life can sometimes be.

Remember everyone is different in what they like to read, these are just my thoughts! Go try out this book and share YOUR thoughts! :) Great job to Ann Garvin!

Single mom, Poppy Lively, is at the end of her rope when her account sets her up for tax fraud. Poppy runs into her one and only love of her life when she is on the verge of losing her home while trying to save money for her daughter's nursing school that begins in the fall. She tells her ex-boyfriend, now a bigtime Hollywood producer, the predicament she is in, and he happens to have the answers she may be looking for. Not knowing how to sew or anything about the movie industry, Poppy sets out driving halfway across the country to begin a new journey in the wardrobe department of a new movie. While struggling with no place to live, the fast-paced studio life, and keeping the money problems from her daughter, Poppy finds out that there is corruption taking place around her. It is up to her to get to the bottom of it.

THERE IS NO COMING BACK FROM THIS is a contemporary fiction about the modern midwestern woman. Poppy was a mess and a pushover at the beginning. She was unsure and whiney, but she was determined. Through the struggles of growing up without a mother, being a single parent, and her new IRS chaos in her life she has become strong-willed and capable. She supports her family and does not back down from a challenge. There are a few surprises in this book. A few unlikeable infuriating characters and a vivid look into the world of the Hollywood Wardrobe Department add to the excitement of this book. The flow of the book has some slow spots that lose focus a bit, but overall, this is an enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and Ann Garvin for the opportunity to read this digital ARC for my honest review.

Thank you to Net Galley, Lake Union Publishing, and the author for a digital ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
Poppy is going through some tough times. She's reached that age where women become invisible, she's about to lose everything she has, including her house, due to an accountant who took everything, and the IRS is ready to pounce. Her daughter has a job out of town for the summer, and a job offer comes in from an old friend/boyfriend who is now a producer. He's gotten her a job on a movie set in wardrobe. She's from the mid-west, thrown into the Hollywood world. Is she going to get back with her ex? Someone new? Or is she just trying to get things together so she can at least save enough for her daughter to attend college. I loved this book, because it was honest, funny, and not a romance per se. It was more about a woman and allll the things she has to do to keep her world together. I highly recommend "There's No Coming Back From This."

What a cute, fun, and charming read this was! There’s No Coming Back from This was my first read from Ann Garvin, and now I’m super excited to read more from the author. (I’ll definitely be checking out her backlist.) I have a soft spot for mature lead characters in women’s fiction, so Poppy in TNCBFT truly warmed my heart. I adored her! She’s a fifty-year-old single mom from Wisconsin in financial ruin. Miraculously, an old flame offers her a job working in the costume department on a movie set. Off to Hollywood she goes, and my gosh, what an adventure it is! The job is not as straightforward as she hoped, and she encounters many bumps and bruises along the way. Not only is the MC a charmer, the supporting cast is just as wonderful and extremely dynamic. Kevin, the lap dog will make your heart swell, even if you’re not a dog person like myself! Ha! I wanted to scoop that cutie up, and cuddle for hours. This novel truly is a gem. It’s humorous, witty, and even a little bit mysterious. Very entertaining! It’s out now, and free to read or listen to on kindle unlimited! 4/5 stars for There’s No Coming Back from This!

If you missed Susan's review of this book last week, here's your chance to add it to your reading list. It is one of the best books I've read this summer.

Poppy is a typical mid-westerner - honest, friendly, and forthright. She is a 50-something mother whose daughter just graduated high school. Her daughter has taken a job in New York City for the summer before she heads to nursing school in the fall. While Poppy is worried about her daughter going to the big city, she is relieved that her daughter won't be home for a few months. Poppy has found herself in hot water with the IRS. She trusted the wrong person to be her accountant and her business and property taxes haven't been paid. In over her head and faced with losing everything she has worked hard for, she will grasp any lifeline offered. In walks her ex. Theirs was a May-December romance nearly 20 years ago. - he was the "one that got away" for Poppy. He is a Hollywood producer and needs Poppy on the set of his new movie.

I read this book super quick. I just couldn't put it down. You know something is quite right on set and I was just waiting for the shoe to drop on Poppy.

Probably because I read it so quickly, I didn't notice some of the errors that others have mentioned in their reviews. And really I was focused on the characters. It is a great character-focused story. I liked Poppy, though I found her annoying at times. It wasn't until Muriel mentioned why she was annoyed with Poppy that I realized it was the same reason for me. But Poppy is a great character, especially if you like rooting for the underdog.

If you are trying to fit in one more beach read before fall, then I definitely recommend this one.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Thursday - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2023/08/3-character-driven-stories-that-you.html

Poppy Lively is a mess. She’s a 50 year old single mom who lives in Wisconsin with a child who is off to college soon. Her mother left when she was a child and her father died, leaving her his coupon business. Her accountant ran off with her money and never paid her taxes. The IRS is after her and she needs to sell her house and find a lucrative job STAT. After dropping her daughter off at the airport for a summer spent as a nanny in NYC, Poppy runs into Three, an old flame. Over drinks she she tells him her financial woes and he offers her a job in Hollywood that might just help her find her way out of all this.

This was a really cute book. I somehow managed to read two books set in Hollywood back to back, both very different from the other. This was a Read Now on NetGalley, which I needed for summer bingo. I may have never read it otherwise. As they say, books find you.

Poppy is a mess and I loved her. As a mom with a child leaving for college in two weeks, I could really relate to her desperation over how she was going to afford making her child’s dream come true. I could feel the stress she was under as she did the math and ran the numbers. Although my life is nothing like Poppy’s, I got it.

The Hollywood setting was fun and the characters were all really interesting, including Kevin the dog. The high stakes movie set made for an even more stressful atmosphere. I enjoyed seeing Poppy flourish there despite her her desperate plight and her lack of direct skills.

This was a 5 star read for the first 3/4 of the book. I really had a good time with it and looked forward to picking it up again after I put it down. The last quarter of the book got a little too silly for me, hence the four stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.

(Note: this review has been published on my goodreads account, the link is added in the links section, and will be doing a TikTok/IG reel later next week.)

The premise: single mom midwest mom who was too trusting and a pushover gets thrown into a tax evasion scandal and is scrambling to piece her life back together and pay the IRS back. With her daughter starting college soon, and big decisions to make, she runs into a former lover who offers her a way out…what will she do? 🤔

Overall 3.3/5 but was nevertheless an entertaining easy read and I liked the little Hollywood details sprinkled in here and there. (Read the full review below)

- Poppy is quirky and funny in a weird way that’s endearing, the author definitely caught the midwesterner way (this was at the beginning)
- Three is still a mystery even at 30% of the book… would have liked to know more about him or of him from interactions with Poppy, but so far they’re few and far between
- The musings of Hollywood are very tongue-in-cheek which works wonders for picturing the actual place where the book takes place and imagining the rest.
- Emilie is ANNOYING, she fits the stereotypical character she’s made to be but still I dislike her and don’t trust her (TBC if it changed the further along I get) update reading till the end: more of her character was explained as the book progresses, my opinion about her definitely changed towards the end, she had a redeeming arc.
- 52% in and a lot of the plot holes haven’t been filled, I have more questions than answers, and it’s a little tiring the way the main character goes back and forth through her memories and current situations as if she’s dozed off.
- Took too long to get to the crux of the matter, and then all of a sudden in a matter of a couple chapters everything got resolved on all fronts.
- Poppy got to be a little annoying at times I get that the author’s theme is characters that have dealt with people pleasing and narcissists, but she almost seems extra naïve at times in a “roll-your-eyes-this-can’t-be-real” way.
- I liked the surprise twist at the end, and the actual ending was very endearing, would've given it 4 stars but it took way too long to get to the juicy part in my opinion.

Started out great; unfortunately by the time the end of the story came it had fallen flat and there was no saving it.

Loved this one! A bit of mystery, quirky characters, a fun setting. Lots of dogs (I especially loved Kevin!) it did feel a bit disjointed a couple times, but overall I really enjoyed this one!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy to read

A quirky, fun, yet serious novel, There’s No Coming Back from This will immediately draw you in! Poppy is certainly down on her luck. With the IRS coming after her when she trusted a friend with the finances of her business, Poppy decides to take a job that has been offered. The job ends up being nothing like what she expected, and Poppy puts a different attitude to the job, causing a few heads to turn. The way Poppy works things out will have you laughing and admiring her bravery! Loved it!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆
Poppy’s daughter Robyn is off to a nanny job in NYC for the summer and she has to make a plan to get her stuff together while Robyn is gone. The IRS is after her for back taxes after she trusted her accountant who then swindled her. A chance meeting with her old ex, Three, at the airport has him offering her a job on a movie set working with the wardrobe team. But it’s a precarious existence and Poppy is struggling to understand the world she’s stepped into. Maybe her mom-skills will come in handy after all.

𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
Poppy is a wonderful character, stronger and totally more capable than she thinks she can be. After a lifetime of feeling like she doesn’t fit in, a wardrobe job on a movie set is just one more step in the same direction. Except Poppy is just as capable of standing up for herself when it’s needed. A lot about this story feels like stepping into a totally new type of world, as if reality is suspended for a time.

Read an eARC copy courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher
My rating 4/5 - ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Pub Date 1 Aug 2023

I wanted to read this book because the author rightly tells us we live 'in a world that asks too much from [women].' But let me admit, I wasn't that fond of the description of this book. However, I'm so glad I did: it was a lovely book, keeping me glued to the page.

Don't we all have hopes and dreams, fears and regrets? Poppy is desperate for this new job and tries to fake it 'till she makes it, but some are better at this than others. Thankfully, there are still kind people out there, even if these are just fictional characters ;-)

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

I was provided an ARC in exchange for giving my honest review.

Overall, I enjoyed this manuscript. It was really interesting to read a book from the perspective of someone who is-- at her heart-- a normal person. She gets anxious, she makes mistakes, but ultimately she wants what's best for her daughter. It was a really relatable, sweet novel, in this sense.

THERE'S NO COMING BACK FROM THIS is about Poppy, a mom from Wisconsin who suddenly finds herself in trouble with the IRS because she hired the wrong person to do her taxes. In the midst of her despair, fate brings her an ex-boyfriend, who offers her a job in LA. Poppy, out of options and on the verge of losing her house, goes to work in wardrobe while her daughter works in New York for the summer. However, upon arriving, Poppy will learn that people-pleasing will only get you so far, and not everyone is how they seem.

I really loved Poppy's dynamics with the various characters she met on set. The author does a great job of building a unique relationship with every person-- and dog-- Poppy meets whether that be acrimonious, friendly, or bloody hilarious.

I also liked Poppy's characterization. I've already mentioned that I found her pretty relatable: she is prone to second-guessing herself and giving into other people's whims. I think that's something everyone struggles with to some degree, and the author did well in exploring these feelings while also having Poppy acknowledge that she needed to change.

That said, there were a couple things that kept me from completely enjoying the novel. Firstly: the old flame. It's absolutely clear from the moment he's first introduced that he's super shady. Who decides to offer a job to someone they dated twenty years ago in the middle of an airport?? I don't *necessarily* mind that Poppy doesn't see that the way he behaves is odd, because the whole point is that he's emotionally manipulative, and she's grown up in a way that she doesn't know how to identify those red flags. I do think that someone who was just tricked by someone who got her in trouble with the IRS would be more careful about stuff like that, but I was kind of willing to let that ago, because again, manipulation. What I do wish is that the author had leaned more into the unreliable narrator aspect of it. It was so obvious to me as the reader that something was going on with her ex that when the main plot started playing out, I wasn't really surprised. While I recognize intellectually why Poppy may not have, his bad intentions were so apparent, I struggled with it at times. So, essentially, I wish that the more emotionally manipulative parts of her ex were introduced more slowly, so that the reader was figuring things out alongside Poppy as opposed to way ahead of her.

The other big thing that bothered me was the IRS subplot. The author basically pulls a deus ex machina (which, if you don't know, is when someone randomly shows up at the end of the story to fix everything). I don't object to deus ex machina as a literary technique-- there are instances where it can be done well-- I just didn't think it quite worked here. It felt a little too out of the blue; Poppy talks a lot about her money troubles, but we rarely saw her actually talking with the IRS, so even though the subplot was there, it didn't feel completely present or focused.

But, overall, this was an enjoyable read. It's one of those books where if you're looking to sit back and just have fun, it's perfect. As a reviewer, it's my job to overanalyze things, but as a reader it's okay to read something and just shut your brain off for a bit. Just feel the feelings.

Favorite Quotes:

I dodged a drug-sniffing dog who lifted his head as I slid by. For all I knew, my nervous energy could be detected, and I’d be labeled as a threat to national security. If I was detained and strip-searched, my ungroomed body hair alone would trigger alarms. No one would be the same after that— and that was the last thing in the world I wanted.

Muriel wore a pair of light jeans and a T-shirt. I gauged her to be somewhere between forty and sixty, that ubiquitous age for a woman that teens considered ancient and homogenous.

If you were sleeping when a tornado hit your house, the people on Twitter would blame you for living in a place where tornados can hit your house. If your accountant stole your money, everyone in your book club would agree that you should have been paying better attention. The blame ball, in the game of life, rolled downhill and, as often as not, hit the victim.

I’m such a third-rate criminal. I’m like one of those people you see on YouTube who rip off a convenience store with a green water pistol because they’re color blind.

It was the oddest sensation, and not a good one, to be suddenly seen. It wasn’t as if people stopped and stared as they might have if, say, Julia Roberts strode between sets, with her stunning choppers and glorious nostrils.

I tried pot once in college and became frantically suspicious that the blue Ford Taurus in my apartment parking lot was an unmarked cop car. I had binoculars from a bird-watching elective and peered at the empty vehicle until my roommate came home and took them from me. After much hydration and time, my paranoia subsided, but I vowed to stay away from the devil’s lettuce forever.



My Review:

I smirked with delight while reading and may have giggle-snorted into my wine glass more than a few times as Ann Garvin’s clever writing quickly transported me into Poppy’s rueful and frenetic vortex with sharp visuals and vibrant descriptions full of humorous observations and witty inner musings. Ms. Garvin’s character development was flawless and her enticing and insightful storytelling kept me reading late into the night. Even her chapter titles were comical and brilliant.

I adored Poppy but I also wanted to give her a few nudges to the seat of her pants from my trusty crocs. Poppy was an authentic and unique character who was well-meaning, well-fleshed out, and completely knowable. She resided in my mind's eye as a recognizable living entity. Poppy’s struggles were real and not of her own doing. She was increasingly endeared to me as she labored at a new position with a do-or-die attitude, frantic pace, and a steep learning curve as best she could with limited resources while walking a keen edge of discovery and humorously teetered on catastrophe. Yet she had a good heart and was up for a loosely planned caper to help right a wrong at her own peril. I was also totally enamored with Alan, with her assigned movie star.

This was my first exposure to the comedic genius of Ann Garvin and I plan to haunt her listings with regularity. Her word voodoo is strong and beckons me to add her clever scribblings to my Kindle.

Super cute. As a fashion design major hoping to bust into the movie/TV industry, it is so rare to find a book that takes place in this exact field. I knew I'd love this book just from the fact that she was working in the costume department, and I was right. This book was super cute and easy to read. The age gap between Poppy and Three, where Poppy is the older one is a refreshing change from what we usually see. Over this was a cute book and I recommend it.