"Ben told me once that the Greeks had this term, epoché, meaning 'I suspend judgment.' Useful for those of us prone to making common cause with strangers on buses."

And for those of us prone to reading books that we're pretty sure aren't going to work tremendously well for us. It's an interesting, maybe even important, portrayal of a contemporary moment but not one I enjoyed reading. "There is a tradition in Judaism that happiness and sorrow must be intermingled." There simply wasn't enough happiness here.

From appearances, you might think this is a breezy, short read. From the measured tone, you might think the narrator is settling in to methodically tell a fantastic or tragic tale. Neither is true. Lizzie, whose head we live in here, is an intelligent, anxious, family-enmeshed, under-achieving, urban woman faced with climate crisis and sociopolitical discouragement on top of the normal concerns of work and family. Almost all of the typical actions of plot take place off page, however, and are revealed through vignettes of Lizzie's observations from six short time spans (each of which makes up a chapter). It's neither breezy nor methodically fantastic or tragic, but it is expertly distilled and purposeful. Each thought, recollection, or conversational snippet is loaded with significance; many will obviously and immediately resonate while others will take a moment and some deciphering. For the right readers willing to put in the work, this would make an excellent book discussion.

Content notes: addiction, post-partum depression, drinking in excess, emotional cheating, suicide watch