Time to Assess

'The Life You've Imagined'
Author: Kristina Riggle


Format: ARC
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks; Aug. 2010
Pages: 352
Genre: Chick-lit; Women's fiction
Rating: B
Source: Crazy Book Tours


Synopsis: Two childhood friends reunite when stressful circumstances bring them back to their hometown. Anna, distraught over the loss of a beloved mentor, takes a leave of absence from her law firm and returns to her mother, Maeve, and their family convenience store. Cami deals with a gambling addiction and breakup by hiding out at her father’s home. Sadly, coming home doesn’t bring them the solace they seek. Maeve’s store is being threatened by an upscale development. Anna is nursing lingering feelings for the high-school sweetheart she left, who now has a wife and family. Cami still mourns her mother’s long-ago death and resents her alcoholic father’s emotional withdrawal. Riggle, author of Real Life and Liars (2009), explores what happens when real life diverges sharply from childhood dreams. Her strong and complicated female characters are interesting and likable, and she ably weaves together multiple story lines.


My Take: By now, I am sure you've realized, I love a book that deals with women and friends trying to sort out their lives. I guess I can relate. Not that my life's a mess but I do believe that life is a journey and you are never done figuring it all out. The title of this novel appealed to me. Are you really living the life you imagined you would as a kid? When the three women in this novel were high school students ripped out a quote from a magazine and made a promise to live the life they imagined they would. But then, they grew up, life threw all kinds of things at them that they never expected and they start down a path and sometimes they need to give pause every once in a while from the rat race to decide whether or not you really are living the life you promised your idealist self that you would be living.


That's exactly what the women this novel centers around are struggling with when we meet them. Granted it took me awhile to figure it out. When I start a book, my life doesn't always grant me the ease to be able to sit down with a book for an hour so that I can really get into it. Sometimes I can only grab 10-15 minutes here and there and this book just sort of plops you down in the middle of these women's crises. It would have been nice if Riggle's could have backed the storyline up just a little bit instead of filling me in later because I was confused for the first 50 pages as to why two women were suddenly moving back home at the same time but unconnected to each other. It seemed a little odd.


One of these women is named Cami. She has left her boyfriend to move back in with her drunk father. Not exactly something any one of us would want to do but we soon find out it's because she has a gambling problem and she needs to rebuild her life. There is Anna, who is a high powered lawyer from Chicago who has just lost someone very close to her so she moves home on bereavement leave for a month to help her mom in her shop and take a break, not realizing how long she might stay. Her mom, Maeve has a whole load of problems of her own. She owns a convenience store and her husband, Anna's dad, left her years ago and she has been struggling with the loss for a long time. The final friend, Amy, never left the small town but has changed. She used to be obese but is now very skinny but still deals with years of teasing in her mind. She is now engaged to a wealthy business man but not all is as dreamy as it sounds.


So yes, all of these women are back and dealing with their emotions. Their lives are a swirling mass of problems and it's messy but it's very interesting and the book has heart. They all want to help each other. This book doesn't have the cattiness that some books full of women can have and I liked that. If you want a book with some heart, I think this one's for you.


Cover Lust: It makes me think of Summer which is just what I needed in the middle of a stormy March!