I picked this book up a few times in the bookstore, reading the first line, like I do. It goes: "Toby Fleishman awoke one morning inside the city he'd lived in all his adult life and which was suddenly somehow now crawling with women who wanted him." Sure, it made me chuckle slightly, but I always put it down: middle aged white divorcée protagonist? Just not for me.

However, I still had some curiosity. After some good reviews, mentions of the swerve the latter half of the book takes, and the National Book Award longlist, I put the audiobook on hold. Then, I began again. And was immediately surprised when the narrator turned out to be a woman. I wondered then if it was really in the omniscient third person. It kind of sounds like it when you first start reading, but then—then!—you hear things like, "Normally, Toby would have called me," and you straighten up while you're pulling clean laundry out of the dryer and go, 'wait a minute!' to exactly nobody in the room.

That's how this clever book sneaks up on you: oh here's something you've read a few times, here's that guy, you know—elbow nudge—that guy you see in so many books. But what if you saw him through not that Important White Male Writer's eyes, but instead, well, I won't ruin it for you. Suffice to say, I loved this book. It's about being an adult, marriage, divorce, navigating the world we live in today, and its a commentary on the expectations people set for each other. I've never paused and rewound an audiobook to write down a line, but I did for this one because it seemed to reach out and speak to my experience as a working parent.

This book has RANGE—at one point I was cackling, the next moment red with rage. Brodesser-Akner wields her tremendous profile-writing skills here in fiction; the characters are deeply explored and while its potently entertaining reading, it also left me with a lot to process. I can't wait for more fiction from Brodesser-Akner.