Annabel Monaghan is the author of two young adult novels and Does This Volvo Make My Butt Look Big?, a selection of laugh-out-loud columns that appeared in The Huffington Post, The Week, and The Rye Record. Nora Goes Off Script is her adult debut novel. She lives in Rye, New York, with her family. You can find her online at AnnabelMonaghan.com or on social media @AnnabelMonaghan. You can find more of my reviews of Annabel's works here.
Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it's her job. But then her too-good-to-work husband leaves her and their two kids, and Nora turns her marriage's collapse into cash, writing the best script of her life. When the script is picked up for the big screen and set to film at her hundred-year-old home with former Sexiest Man Alive Leo Vance cast as her ex-husband, Nora's life will never be the same. After shooting wraps, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He'll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. She could use the money, but it's the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it's the blink of an eye or an eternity, depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart. Filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story—the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids, and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.
Nora Goes Off Script very quickly became a new favorite of mine—within the first few chapters, I fell in love with how Monaghan depicted Nora's life in New York as a screenwriter for Hollywood, a single mother raising two kids, a woman happy her husband was gone but definitely needing to fill in some blanks. Monaghan had a way of describing Nora's life that made everything about its ordinariness feel magical. And, when exciting or unreal things happened, everything wasn't blown out of proportion; instead, it felt like normal people experiencing abnormal things. The writing was so easy to fall into, and Monaghan built a world that I truly didn't want to escape.
I read Vacationland by Meg Mitchell Moore a few weeks ago, and the kids stole the show in that book! So, it was fun to read another book with a different energy to it with more kids stealing the show! Bernie and Arthur were adorable, and fully-fleshed out characters in their own right. I love how Nora is so cognizant of their childhood and the big feelings that come along with it, while also balancing her own feelings and thoughts, especially regarding Ben and Leo. Watching as their family dynamic shifted throughout the novel was so fascinating, because you're understanding it not just from Nora's point of view, but also from Nora's point of view from her children's point of view. All of which to say, I love the focus on family and responsibility and the quotidian in Nora Goes Off Script.
What I loved so much about the ending is how I didn't know how it was going to end. With romance books, it is obvious that the couple will end up together, but everything between Leo and Nora felt so fraught at the end. Their few-week romance at the beginning, like Nora says, felt like a dream—how could it all possibly be resolved? I loved how I couldn't predict where it was going; part of the fun was the journey discovering with Nora just how many players are involved in life. And, at the end, I felt like everything was fulfilled, all loose ends satisfied and all the characters done justice.
Monaghan's next book, Same Time Next Summer is set to release in the next few weeks and after enjoying Nora Goes Off Script so much, I'm definitely thinking of checking it out. Until then, you can find Annabel online at AnnabelMonaghan.com or on social media @AnnabelMonaghan.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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