“Holly Banks Full of Angst” by Julie Valerie

Title: Holly Banks Full of Angst
Author: Julie Valerie
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Year: 2019
Genre(s): contemporary
Part of a Series: Yes, Book #1

Rating: 

Why I read it: Once Upon a Time book club selection.

Summary: Holly Banks has just moved to the Village of Primm and is trying to unpack while also getting her daughter Ella off to kindergarten. But everything that can go wrong does and Holly makes quite the first impression at Ella’s school. She wonders if she will ever fit in with the other mothers as her own mother arrives and her husband drops a bombshell. Will Holly survive the first week in Primm? Or will everything in her life always be a disaster?

Review: I think it’s a miracle I finished this book and didn’t add it to my (small) “Did Not Finish” shelf on Goodreads. So this might be a short review as I don’t want to be too negative in these reviews and try to balance everything out. But that might be hard.

This is the book I referenced in my review of The Lost Apothecary. Like that book, this one takes place over a short period of time – only a week. But unlike that book, while a lot happens in Holly’s first week in Primm, by the end of the book, I was left with the feeling that a whole lot of nothing ultimately happened. A few plots were introduced but only one had something resembling resolution. Nothing else really got resolved. I wouldn’t even say Holly had any growth, especially as there is a book two and the synopsis seemed to indicate that it was just more of the same with Holly still worrying about the same things she did in this book.

The other problem was that I really didn’t like any of the characters with the exception of Ella. And maybe Greta, Holly’s mom, who was the only adult with a redeeming side in the story. Everyone else, including our protagonist, did not. Mary-Margaret was the worst and I must applaud Valerie for getting me to feel as annoyed and infuriated by this character as Holly. But it seems Valerie wants the reader to feel bad for Mary-Margaret at one point in the book and I just couldn’t bring myself to feel any sympathy for her. Valerie did create a couple nice moments but nothing to sustain something of a redemption arc.

(I also didn’t like Holly’s husband, Jack, and really thought she would’ve been better off as a single mother rather than married to him. He too had no redeeming aspects in my opinion, especially as his major bombshell in the book was never really resolved).

Valerie did do a good job in creating the world of Primm. It felt like a real place and she captured the dynamics in small towns very well. Her descriptions also allowed me to picture this idyllic town somewhere on the East Coast as well as its inhabitants and prized botanical gardens. So that is another plus for the book.

Bottom line: Not something I would recommend.

Sex: Implied.

Moonlight Musing

Have you ever dealt with a pushy person?