Early Morning Riser
by Katherine Heiny
Publication date: April 13th 2021
Publisher: Random House Audio
Summary:
Jane easily falls in love with Duncan: he’s charming, good-natured, and handsome. He has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan’s old girlfriends everywhere – at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While she may be able to come to terms with dating the world’s most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she didn’t have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, still has Duncan mow her lawn. And his coworker Jimmy comes and goes from Duncan’s apartment at the most inopportune times. Jane wonders how the relationship is supposed to work with all these people in it. Not to mention most of the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices.
But any notion Jane has of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Now her life is permanently intertwined with Duncan’s, Aggie’s, and Jimmy’s, and she knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But is it possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of her eyes? A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, ‘EARLY MORNING RISER’ is Katherine Heiny’s most astonishingly wonderful work to date.
Source: Goodreads
Thoughts:
“Early Morning Riser” is the perfect feel-good read for 2021. It basically tells the story of Jane and her pretty normal life from 2002 to 2019. Jane is a primary school teacher who has recently moved to Boyne City, Michigan and she is just lovely. Jane soon falls in love with Duncan, a local woodworker, but Duncan’s romantic past raises some questions and doubts in her mind, especially because of his close relationship with his ex-wife.
Everyone that Jane meets in her new town is a unique personality and they all have something to add to the story. I was particularly fond of Jane’s relationship with the lovely Jimmy. Jimmy has learning difficulties and Jane being Jane soon makes him an integral part of her family and friendship group.
Full of heart-warming moments of family life and friendship, I found this book to be quite authentic and it made for a really enjoyable read.
If you enjoy character based stories, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this. It’s not heavily plot driven, but each quirky character is bound to put a smile on your face.
Overall rating: ‘Early Morning Riser’ is a feel-good easy read (or listen in my case). This is an enjoyable character based story following a quirky bunch over a period of 17 years. I really liked it and it’s 4 stars from me!
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