Early Morning Riser - Katherine Heiny

 

Description

A wise, bighearted, boundlessly joyful novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family from the celebrated author of Standard Deviation.

Jane easily falls in love with Duncan: he's charming, good-natured, and handsome. He has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan.

Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere – at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While she may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she didn't have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, still has Duncan mow her lawn. And his coworker Jimmy comes and goes from Duncan's apartment at the most inopportune times. Jane wonders how the relationship is supposed to work with all these people in it. But any notion Jane has of love and marriage changes with one tragic accident. Now her life is permanently intertwined with Duncan's, Aggie's, and Jimmy's, and she knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But is it possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of her eyes? 

A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, Early Morning Riser is Katherine Heiny's most astonishingly wonderful work to date.

Review

I wanted to read this book because I loved Katherine Heiny's first novel Standard Deviation so much, and this second book did not disappoint me.

I think whatever I write about this book cannot do it justice. Just like in her first book Heiny has an innate ability to just write about everyday life and have you wanting to read it forever. At times I felt myself wondering - what would I do when this book was over and I had to leave these people?

Jane is the main character in the book, she has a dry sense of humour and a wonderful way of explaining the world around her. She meets Duncan and soon finds out that she is far from the love of his life, having a trail of exes around town (and the next town over) who he acknowledges all the time when he sees them. Not only that his ex wife is still around and he mows her lawn and fixes anything her current husband can't, which basically is everything. 

The star of the novel for me is Jimmy. He has learning disabilities and is so trusting and kind to everyone. My heart was in my mouth for most of the book, hoping he would come to no harm. I think I worried about him more than Jane did. 

Eventually Jane's life becomes that of a 2nd grade teacher with two children a husband and Jimmy all to look after. How she gets through her life over the years and what becomes of her is the basis of this novel and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It may not sound like it, but really this book has laugh out loud moments to beat any TV sitcom.

I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review. This book is published on 15 April 2021.