TGIF!
Today I have a review for this engaging story that I enjoyed from first page to last! Thanks again to Suzy for my invitation to this tour.💜
My Thoughts
authentic. Engaging. Refreshing.
Lea Geller’s debut was witty and heartwarming. A fun story with some depth. A lovely tale about second chances and finding out who you really are.
Agnes is living the good life. A beautiful home, a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, a staff to take care of said beautiful daughter and days full of yoga and lunches with friends. Then one day Agnes‘s husband Jack does not show up for their couples massage, something is wrong. Soon Agnes finds out that Jack is in financial trouble and hiding out waiting for the dust to settle. Meanwhile he advises Agnes that she needs to pack up and head across the country and take a job as a middle school teacher in the Bronx. So Agnes packs up her car along with her baby Grace, and heads across country. She starts the journey out with organic fruit and ends it with cheese puffs. When she gets to the Bronx she finds herself living in a small townhouse and teaching mischievous boys. A far cry from her yoga filled days, but this is only temporary, isn’t it?
Agnes wasn’t always likable and I didn’t necessarily find her relatable, however I did find her authentic. At times I found Agnes so exasperating. First of all she moved all the way across the country without even questioning the Y of it. Then she came across so ungrateful for having a furnished place to live in and a job. At other times I found Agnes terribly endearing. I loved how she sampled all the toddler food on her road trip across the country. She even sampled those meat sticks, then she put them in a casserole and brought them to a potluck, yuck! Then there was the interaction with the boys in her classroom. She really found a great way to relate to 12-year-old boys and their 12-year-old boy humor. Loved the bit about the Christmas tree, so touching. Simply put this was a delightful story about a woman trying to figure out what kind of life she really wanted to live. 8/10
*** thank you Lake Union for my copy of this book ***
About the Book
For the last ten years, Agnes Parsons’s biggest challenge has been juggling yoga classes and lunch dates. Her Santa Monica house staff takes care of everything, leaving Agnes to focus on her trophy-wife responsibilities: look perfect, adore her older husband, and wear terribly expensive (if uncomfortable) underwear.
When her husband disappears, leaving Agnes and their infant daughter with no money, no home, and no staff, she is forced to move across the country, where she lands a job teaching at an all-boys boarding school in the Bronx. So long, organic quinoa bowls and sunshine-filled California life. Hello, processed food, pest-infested house, and twelve-year-old-boy humor – all day, every day.
But it’s in this place of second chances (and giant bugs), where Agnes is unexpectedly forced to take care of herself and her daughter, where she finds out the kind of woman she can be. Ultimately, she has to decide if she prefers the woman and mother she has become…or the trophy life she left behind.
Authentic and sharply witty, Trophy Life is proof that granny panties and mom coats might not be the answer to everything; they’re simply comfortable (if slightly unattractive) reminders of what happens when one life ends…and real life begins.
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