Book Review: After Happily Ever After by Leslie A Rasmussen
After Happily Ever After
Author: Leslie A Rasmussen
Published: April 6, 2021
Audiobook
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: April 24-27, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
Maggie Dolan finds herself at forty-five at a crossroads in her life. Once a high-level executive, she’s chosen to be a stay-at-home mom for the last seventeen years. But now with her daughter, Gia, soon leaving for college, and her husband, disconnected and with secrets he hasn’t shared, Maggie decides it’s time to figure out what she wants for the rest of her life. As she begins her journey, she has to deal with a narcissistic mother, a brother who doesn’t like her and most damaging of all, the news that her father, her rock, has medical issues that may take him from her. Overwhelmed by all these issues, she’s led in a direction that could destroy what she’s built and make her question the choices she’s made. She’s torn between the life she’s always known and something more exciting that she never expected.
Jessica’s Review:
This is one I was interested in, as I am close in age to the protagonist Maggie, but it just didn’t deliver. Maggie is at a crossroads in her life with her daughter getting closer to leaving the nest for college and issues with her parents and brother. Maggie has a sort of mid life crisis with the ‘hot guy’ from the gym she befriends. This is where I had all my issues: OMG stop it! You are having an affair! It may not be a physical one, but it was definitely a mental affair. What made it worse is that she knew it, but just kept going on with it.
Her husband isn’t really around for her and her daughter is having her own issues with school life. Maggie also has mom issues and loves her dad, but is slowly losing him to dementia. The dementia story line is what kept me going with this novel. There is a twist that happens that you are not expecting.
The audiobook was almost 8 hours long and I also had some issues with the narrator. She didn’t change her voice any when the narrated pov switched characters: So if you are not paying close attention at the beginning of the chapter you could get confused as to which character was narrating. This could also get complicated since one character has dementia.
After Happily Ever After has been out for just over a year and was just recently released in audiobook form, which I was given a copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Many thanks for the copy, I just wish I had enjoyed it more.
I can’t recommend this novel, but would give the author another try in a future novel.