Real Life and Other Fictions

Definitely the weirdest book I’ve ever read, but I loved it. Somebody PLEASE get Cassie a helmet. I love that she’s 50. Girl boss finding her way after her awful husband has spent years draining her, on a roadtrip to the place that took so much from her as a baby. Cassie is very funny grumpy and the narrator executes her personality so well. I was so entertained and found myself always wanting to pick this audiobook up :) An audiobook with only one person narrating can be hard to get into if they don’t differentiate characters well, but that is not the case here! High quality :)

I will say, if you’ve got a fear of moths, this book is not for you!! I will say it’ll be a while until I can hear that word again, but just when I was starting to get sick of hearing about moths with no additional context, everything started to slowly come together.

Her puppy is basically her own character as they describe all the trouble she gets into. As a dog lover, this was so cute and provided some needed comedic relief She is such a wild dog mom!

This felt like the family friendly version of that tv show “Lost Tapes” where they went around looking for Bigfoot and such. So fun, but also built on a very tragic backstory that has haunted Cassie for years. It was wonderful to go along on her healing journey.

Richard is the worst and he will remain the worst and I think that I love that so much. Stinky men don’t change.

The plot twists are so good!! Thriller worthy, but without the anxiety. You’ve gotta lean into wholesome coincidences and fate for this one.

This isn’t a romance book, but there is a cute lil love interest that’s built on the basis of a friendship. :) I want to hug Cassie for all she’s persevered through. <3

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Muse Audiobooks for an ARC of this book that get’s published on May 21st.

Real Life and Other Fictions by Susan Coll
I would like to Thank Harper Collins and NetGalley for the ability to review an ARC audiobook copy of this novel.
Meet Cassie, she’s in her fifties and needs to find her story. As an empty nester whose marriage is over, she leaves just before Christmas with her new puppy to find the truth of her story that has been hidden for her lifetime. She finds truth, love and how she fits into a well known folk tale of the Moth man.
The audiobook was narrated by Jane Oppenheimer. The audiobook had a nice flow and swept you away to join the characters in the story. The narrator had a nice mellow voice that fit well with the characters and really brought them to life! The audiobook was so pleasant and I felt I was part of the story, it definitely made the whole experience nice.
I absolutely loved this book! It resonated with me on a personal level as a reader in my fifties, and also an empty nester. I would recommend this story in any format but especially the audiobook version!

This was a really cute book. The characters were very relatable, and fun to follow. I found it really easy and quick to read, finding it very sweet. It brings up so many common family issues, infidelity, broken marriage, generational trauma and more. It was so relatable and brought up the importance of open communication with family and friends. The narrator Jane Oppenheimer did a great job sharing the story of Cassie and her family. Thank you to Susan Coll, Harper Collins Focus publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this heartwarming story.

This book will either mesmerize you or make you bored. It is a weird book. Thankfully, for me I was completely mesmerized by the main character, We first meet Cassie as she is driving across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (I used to live right by it) so of course I was interested. However bonus points for loving this book if you are a dog lover as her dog plays highly in the story. We meet moths and "mothmen" and radio and TV personalities and meterologists and cryptozoologists. Or something like that.

I loved the narrator - I just felt completely drawn into the story and didn't know WHY I actually cared about this person but I did. There is an element of mystery that helps move the plot, as well as some possibly romance and of course more PUPPIES. I listened to the audiobook and I would highly recommend that option if you can. First book in a while that I've reviewed that I actually looked forward to reading (listening).

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC #sponsored

Cassie, a writing teacher in her fifties is at a crossroads in her life. He husband a disgraced meteorologist has permanently moved to their basement due to his weather phobia, her daughter has just left for college and she has adopted a new puppy due to her feeling so alone. She has also had enough of her husbands self absorption and decides to go on a road trip to visit the bridge in West Virginia where her parents had died. Cassie has had questions about her parents death on the bridge collapse all her life but the aunt and uncle who raised her would shut down the topic any time she brought it up. Cassie wants answers and she is finally going to get them. Thus begins this wonderful story of a woman finding herself, finding new hope and new love. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and all it's quirky characters. The author has a wonderful voice and I love her writing style, honest and slightly humorous. I highly recommend this novel and the narrator of the audio book I listened to was phenomenal. 5 solid stars.

This was such a fun book to listen to! I loved how it grasped my attention from the beginning and the characters were so fun! Great book. I very much enjoyed this

I kind of expected the idea of this book to be flipped. Instead, MC is determined to uncover information about her past that everyone has kept from her. In her travels, it seems like everything she encounters changes the story of her life in a way that she has to decide if she is going to embrace the story she's been told or the story she is living.
The book is fascinating and was really hard to put down. Even though the book ended in a great place, these were the kind of characters I want to keep coming back to visit and check in on.

#arc
#netgalley
#reallifeandotherfictions

This was such an interesting book! Because there was a magical realism tilt, I kept second-guessing the narrator. It’s never tense, but it’s pretty much always curious. If you need a cut-and-dry story that doesn’t make you question how things are playing out, I’d stay away from this one. For this one, you have to be okay feeling just one step away from believing everything is a dream.

Surprising, in the best of ways! I went into this book without reading the synopsis or having any real idea what the book was about. Having read other Susan Coll books I was expecting a heartfelt, slow romance/lit fic. I was not prepared for a deep dive into the lore of mothman nor a story about a woman whose life is so intimately intertwined with that lore. To say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book would be an understatement. Coll has created a story that details generational trauma, historical events, and mythology without having a definate stance on any of these things, She leaves the door open for readers to draw their own conclusions about what really happens. While Coll leaves readers to their own devices when it comes to cryptzooloy, she does an excellent jobs of winding the novel down, without anything feeling final. Readers get the sense that this is just the beginning of Cassie's life and story. It was refreshing to have a character over 35 in a story that felt like it would continue off the page. Overall, I really great novel with lots of fun elements and many emotional moments. The narrator was excellent!

I went to mark this in Goodreads & saw some reviews & frankly? I’m mad. I think the folks who DNF actually just did not get it… & that’s on them. This was a surprising gem of a book. It took me a few false starts to get into it, but I am so grateful that I gave it a listen at a time when I wasn’t about to fall asleep & could give it a few extra minutes to let the tale unfold. The moth motif worked for me. I feel like we all have these things that we really can’t explain to anyone else… whether it’s something we never fail to notice or an unshared quirk or a secret obsession. I felt like this normalized those things in our lives. As someone who is much closer to Cassie’s age than I would care to admit, I felt seen in a really unique and meaningful way. At the same time, I loved the glimpses into someone else’s life—especially one with so many detours. I am a fan.