I sound so morbid but my god was it refreshing to read about someone who DOESNT have the perfect life!! So realistic in the struggles the main character faces and I can see this appealing to so many people.

The Reinvention of Emily Brown
Jodi Gibson

5 stars

Thank you NetGalley for my copy of The Reinvention of Emily Brown by Jodi Gibson. I have not received any compensation for this review. All thoughts and opinions contained in this review are my own and mine alone.

In summary: A women’s fiction delight. A book that may well resonate with many women as they hit their forties and figure out what is next in their life, where to go to next, how to accomplish the next chapters in life. The characters felt real and it was if I knew them. For one thing I could definitely relate to the main character Emily and her penchant for running away from things rather than facing things head on, but I digress.

Jodi Gibson’s depiction of Emily Brown/Mendez in a somewhat midlife crisis mode was excellent. I liked the fact that Jodi gave Emily a reality that women of forty can empathise with. Some of us have already been there in similar situations. Emily has strength and agency but she is totally unaware of this, instead she can be a little ‘woe is me’ kind of person and blame everyone else for her shortfalls. I am sure many readers will know of someone like that in their lives and can relate to. What is different in this story, is the fact that Emily knows that she can’t hide any longer. Her husband was an alcoholic and clearing out the joint bank accounts as he dealt with his job loss, Emily could not take the strain any longer and then she loses her own job. That is a lot for a person to go through, a very emotional time and I think Jodi did this storyline justice while being delicate. I also appreciate the depiction of the drama between mother and daughters as it feels accurate and most mothers can imagine the angst their teenagers go through and so it felt just right for the story and the plot.
The writing is easy to digest, and light despite the themes depicted such as alcoholism and family drama. The book was hard to put down and finished in two days straight. I found myself enjoying every aspect of the book. I also enjoyed the morals of the story here, and they were these : doesn’t matter how much you run from your problems, they will always find a way to bite you hard. It is better to face the problems as they arise. Also, it is okay to feel comfortable within yourself when you have had enough. It is okay to leave a relationship when there is nothing left.

Thank you Jodi Gibson for an excellent story.

i'm sure this would have been better if i were 40 myself.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

When Emily Brown is left at the grocery store with no money to pay for her purchases, her husband’s gambling addiction is the final straw, and she leaves, carting her horrified teenage daughter with her to her hometown of Curlew Bay.

Crashing with her parents, and instantly back at war with her “perfect” sister, Emily flounders from one situation to the next, screwing up a variety of new jobs, and coming face-to-face with her high school sweetheart. He’s never forgiven her for breaking his heart. But the secret she’s kept from him all these years needs to come out, as well as secrets her own family has been hiding.

When Emily’s daughter throws more upheaval her way, she realizes the only way to get her life back on track is to reinvent it—and her actions will change everything.

Jodi Gibson’s latest is a fun, sentimental read, with a side of romance that is sure to appeal to fans of women’s fiction. Written with humor, full of likable characters, relatable situations, and home truths, it will also strike a familiar note with any mother who has put everyone else's needs ahead of her own.

This is an equally tough & relatable read, as I imagine it can be a bit triggering from some readers to absorb Emily's challenges when she can't seem to catch a break. On the flip side, I also found myself nodding along to some of her woes as this is a very realistic life story! And good grief, I simultaneously wanted to give her a hug and smack some sense into her!

I do wish the ending was bit more verbose, as it seemed to sort of...stop. And I would've loved more about sweet Lucy. But of course was thrilled for the rekindled romance and happier times for Emily and her reinvention!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Verb Publishing for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Reinventing Emily Brown....

This book really gave me all the feels. I could picture myself relating with Emily. It had great moments and very sad moments. Your heart just breaks for Emily. She struggles with her teenage daughter, and that is just adding to her life lately. She is about to get divorced, homeless and hopeless. The only place she can think of going it back to her home town. She moves back in with her parents. Emily takes on the good and the bad with her life while reinventing herself. You will catch yourself rooting for Emily along the way! Read to see if she gets her happy ending!

Unfortunately this book was a miss for me. I'm 40% in and it's so depressing. Not sure when the "delightful" story starts but I won't be continuing.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Verb Publishing through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you, Verb Publishing.

This is a proper women's fiction-esque book where the MC Emily, when faced with all the shit her life is in right now, decides that it needs to change, and makes a move towards that. The book does a pretty good job of exploring her journey, as well as her evolving relationships with her family and friends. There was a lot of introspection into the past and into what she wanted in her future, and the book wraps it all up in a neat hea!

TWs - alcoholic partner/parent, being laid off suddenly, almost poverty

-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

I loved this! And this is the perfect women's fiction to get lost into Emily's life and su ked into her love for Simon. Perfection!
I just reviewed Reinventing Emily Brown by Jodi Gibson. #reinventingemilybrown #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

I really enjoyed the setting to this story and the quality of writing enabled me to fully engage in the theme of wildlife and views. I believed in Emily's character, so much so that I felt rather sad as her challenges developed, which is not something I personally look for in a book. Of course, I appreciate others do enjoy experiencing a wider range of emotions...just not for me. I enjoyed the positive elements of the narrative and felt that Emily's and Simon's rekindled teenage romance was interesting and romantic. One area that jarred was the sudden ending, including Lucy's sudden change of character. I felt that the way the characters and plot developed through the majority of the book was steady and measured but the resolution seemed rushed.

This book had some good bits! I quite liked the whole 'rat racing is getting to me' aspect and I think many people relate to this. However, I found myself drifting it times, which is why I didn't rate it higher.

Poor Emily… This is probably one of the most relatable reads I’ve encountered. So much of this book found myself agreeing out loud, and questioning what I would do in certain situations. Being a mom who has experienced aspects of life that are far from what I could ever imagine, I felt for Emily from start to finish. By the end I wished she was a real person just so I could give her a hug! The story, though sad if you think about it, was enjoyable. I already started recommending it to my mom friends, and they can’t wait for it to come out so they can read it for themselves. The only thing I didn’t really like was Mary’s POV, it seemed to break up the flow a bit to much.

My rating: 4/5

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for providing an unbiased review.

3.25

I will admit, I consciously chose this book because there was a basset hound on the cover, and mentioned in the summary. I subconsciously selected this book because I seem to unwittingly read several books back to back that have random connections, in this case, Australia.

Oh, Emily!…

Admittedly, I don’t know what I would do if I had to flee the checkout stand at the grocery store with my teenage daughter because all of my cards were all declined, only to find my long-term unemployed husband, (who VOLUNTEERED to be the breadwinner because I had to drop out of law school to have our child) has spent all of our money on drinking and gambling when he was supposed to be looking for a job.

I do know what it’s like to have Leif fall apart, and even to have to go home with your tail between your legs. Emily, if you can’t get a Basset hound to like you, well …

As I’ve written in reviews in the past, wishing characters would communicate when it would so obviously solve all of their problems would leave us without any books, movies, or TV shows. It’s no longer martyrdom when you quadruple down on assuring your almost grown daughter, that everything‘s OK when she can clearly see that it’s not.

Reinventing Emily Brown has all of the characteristics of a Hallmark movie. She is expecting a promotion. Check. She gets laid off and has to move home to a small town with a two-worded name, the second of which refers to some kind of land or water formation. Check. Said town is getting ready to hold its beloved annual festival and she gets roped into saving it. Check! She’s officially with a jerk who is still back in the city. Check. There’s an old boyfriend who has also moved back and some ambiguous hints of some abandonment after graduating from high school and the life they had supposedly planned together. Check! If their winter had been cold enough, there surely would have been ice skating, snowman building, and hot cocoa.

Obviously, even though the story jumps to the next morning, the fact that two characters clearly sleep together removes it from the Hallmark genre.

At this point, we are pretty annoyed with Emily, but she still has opportunities to get back into our good graces. Instead, she crudely saws off her nose and the noses of the whole town (metaphorically) for money because she thinks it’s what she has to do even though nobody has told her that.

Normally, I might call this a spoiler, but with the Hallmark algorithm, we already know that the story is going to magically wrap itself up with a bow no matter how big of a mess Emily makes. I learned a lot about Australian birds, and the characters were cute but, well, you’ll see what I mean.

Emily's life has just hit rock-bottom: her husband has been unemployed for a while, they are about to lose their house, her teenage daughter apparently hates her and now she has been let go. With nowhere else to go she and her daughter come back to Emily's hometown and move in with her parents. Emily has to do something to turn her life around and reinvent herself, but it's not always easy...
I enjoyed reading this book. I found the characters to be believable and relatable. I liked the small-town setting and some of the things that happened to Emily made me laugh out loud.

A really enjoyable read. Showing that we all have problems that others know nothing about, but could probably help with if they did. Very uplifting in how it shows that sometimes you need to put yourself first, and make yourself happy before you can help make anyone else happy. Throw in some small town drama and you've got a great read.

Emily Brown was over it ALL, it was time for change
So many relateable passages in this book, I found myself nodding my head quite often as I read.
Coming out the other side of motherhood myself albeit a bit older than Emily I’m doing a bit if my own reinventing, I ‘got’ Emily.
I appreciated the often terse family dynamics because in reality - that’s life
I love that Emily made the hard decisions, although not always best for everybody else, she prioritised herself
There were times I wondered what on earth she was thinking/doing, I couldn’t work out how it would play out, it unfolded beautifully
Thank you for another great read Jodi.

Emily Brown’s life in Melbourne, Australia is imploding when she finds herself back in the sleepy seaside town of her childhood. As a mother in her late thirties, she begins trying to reinvent a life that she realizes has left her with very little sense of authentic self along with her teen daughter, Hayley, and senior mother, Mary.

I enjoyed like the idea of this story. As mothers, we tend to find that we put our own needs last. I love the idea of Emily trying to remember who she was before and who she wants to be from now on.

I found the pace of the first 3/4 or so of the book to be a bit slower than I typically enjoy. Everything wraps up in the end fairly quickly though in comparison to the beginning.

Although the majority of the story is told first person in Emily’s voice, we do get around six chapters told in third person from Mary’s perspective. The switch between the two perspectives is a bit clunky and I feel like if we were breaking from Emily’s narrative with one character, we may as well have had chapters from Hayley’s perspective and even Lucy, Emily’s sister. They play such important roles in Emily’s self-discovery, I am left wondering why only Mary.

Overall a worthwhile read for me, but may be a bit of a sleeper for others.

I received a free copy of, Reinventing Emily Brown, by Jodi Gibson, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Emily needs reinventing and then some, homeless, soon to be divorced, tail between her legs returns home with her fifteen year old daughter, Hayley. This was a good read, interesting, good family dynamics.

A cozy story set in a small town with a tight-knit community with the beach full of little birds!

With a timely topic about not knowing how to deal with difficulties, live up to expectations, people pretending to be working their way to success, yet their need for other's validation... One character even pretending to have a partner just to make it look as if they've got it all together.
Just because something doesn't go right, it doesn't mean there is something wrong or even that is is a failure. That people are failures. It is okay not to be okay.
And indeed, what is normal? What if your own idea of something feels better than keeping up with what is mainstream?

That said... I can't help but think it was a bit flat regarding diversity when it comes to skin color, sexual orientation, religion, history, cultural background, and chronics, but I could add that to a lot of reviews on books I've read recently...

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

Emily is like most moms in their mid-thirties...exhausted. Life has thrown her a few curveballs and the life she thought she was running towards since she was 20, she was now running from. She seemed to be successfully failing at marriage, work, and motherhood. When she returned home to the small, idyllic, town, she had run from (and the boy whose heart she had broken) the past comes flooding back.

Emily's story is relatable and a beautiful reminder that "you can't pour from an empty cup"