⭐️⭐️ Review - Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around by Camille Pagán

This review has been made possible thanks to @NetGalley and @amazonpublishing for providing me with an Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is about Libby, her husband Shiloh and their twin teenage daughters as Libby comes to terms with her father's recent death, her 10 year anniversary of being cancer free and the divorce of her brother and his partner. In order to celebrate her 10 year remission anniversary, they take a trip to Puerto Rico, where she and her husband met, and visit an elderly friend Maligros. They get caught in a hurricane, their daughter is running low on insulin for Type 1 Diabetes and their friend Marigros has a heart attack.

While I have read some of Pagan's work before, I was disappointed with this novel. Libby is described as a sunny, positive person, who can bring light to any room. However, in the novel, she only complains, worries, reprimands her daughters and whines to her husband about their lack of a sex life. This novel only pushes her further into herself and feels wildly depressing and unpleasant. It didn't feel like I was reading this novel to escape anything in my life, I only felt trapped in their situation and wished I could make it stop. I didn't find the 47 year old's life interesting, relatable or worth telling a story about. Libby felt stuck in her situation and beyond a change in her perspective, hadn't changed by the end of the book.

Personally, I would not read or recommend this novel again, but if a middle-aged woman is going through a dry spell with her partner, feeling stuck at work and would like to read about how it could always get worse, this is the book for you.