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lvleggett's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Deagler builds this world so quickly and completely that you feel like you are sitting at the Monk family breakfast table from scene one. This is the type of natural and free-flowing writing that sweeps me along without realising how much time has passed. We travel from month to month, couch to couch, story to story as Dennis navigates the first year of sobriety in a world that doesn't get it or is actively working to stay drunk or high. This is a book of short stories really, tied together with the thread of the main character and his slow evolution. I appreciate that we meet Dennis a few months in. This isn't a story about getting sober, this is a story about staying sober. And it's insightful, honest about what that looks like and feels like. This is also a book about Philadelphia, which serves as a parallel narrator, evolving around its characters. There's a hint of Isherwood in here - a man wandering through life observing the world around him. While it appears to stick to the surface of Dennis and his world, don't be fooled - there's a vulnerable heart underneath that has a lot to say about our world of substance users and abusers and the spaces they occupy. Everyone will recognise someone in this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Addiction, Mental illness, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Death, Drug use, and Hate crime
lbosch's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I enjoyed the first half of the book, and then it just kinda fell off for me. The second to last chapter was especially frustrating, which I suspect was the point. Not sure why either though, it was not any more intense than the other ones. I would recommend to any other future reader to at least read the last chapter. I thought that was meaningful.
leknapp's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
lilacslasting's review
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Early Sobrieties is a quiet and intimate novel about starting again. Dennis is 26, newly sober and living with his parents when one day his mother declares that both him and his younger brother have to leave. This sets Dennis on a couch surfing journey of Philadelphia, navigating old friends, making new ones, greiving his past lives and trying to find some sort of purpose. Set adrift with endless possibilities, every chapter we are introduced to a new set of characters, a new couch, spare room or sofa he is occupying, and a new job or life purpose or scheme, the only consistency throughout the book is Dennis and his sobreity.
A sharp and purely human story, Michael Deagler's debut is full of wit and clarity. Every moment of this novel is marked with an intelligence and truthfulness, making it a believable mirror of the world. It reminds oneself of the many times we needed to recalibrate our lives, when something so massive shifts or completely disapears and we have to build new temporary homes until we find something that sticks.
Dennis goes through what can perhaps be described as a secondary coming of age in this novel. He is trying to get his footing right in his new and liquorless life. How does this new sober version of himself walk and talk, how does he love, what kind of friend is he, what kind of son, what kind of brother.
In the end this novel is just snapshots, clear and defining moments for this complex and troubled character. The uncertaintinty of sobriety and fear of starting again is balanced perfectly with the hijinks and simplicity of being 26 and adrift. Dennis is not only discovering himself in this new sober light, but also the joy of mocktails, supporting your friends weird hobbies, non-dating, oktoberfest, veganism and basement dance parties.
Thank you to Hutchinson and Heinemann for gifting me this advanced proof copy of Early Sobrieties. Out in the UK on the 27th of June.
literarycrushes's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler tells the story of 26-year-old Dennis Monk. After eight years of ceaseless boozing, he is now seven months sober and re-learning what it means to be a “normal” human. The novel is broken up into a series of interconnected vignettes tied to his various living situations as he coasts around Philadelphia, crashing with friends and people he vaguely knew while he was drinking.
The novel is not delicate about the struggles of staying sober, though in Monk’s case, it’s less about curbing his desire to drink (though he still feels this) than the difficulty of filling the expansiveness of time he now has. His friends and family are frustratingly suspicious of his sobriety (of his mother, he says: “My sobriety was not something she was obliged to foster like the orchid of some out-of-town neighbor.”) and he spends a large portion of time at bars or somehow involved in their madcap nocturnal adventures.
His sobriety gives him license to feel superior to anyone who still drinks, “regardless of the other factors of their lives or mine,” and casts Monk is a slightly pretentious light, though it’s clear this is more of a defense mechanism to protect himself than a genuine dislike of everyone he comes into contact with. Overall, it was an insightful recorvery narrative” “Sometimes I lay in bed and stared at the blankness of the ceiling, wondering what the rest of my life would entail. Sometimes it seemed wide open – obscenely so, like I was standing on a rooftop of the city spread before me, to horizon line low, the sky as big as people were always insisting that it was. But other times the future seemed so compact, condensed to fit within the four walls around me, as though my entire life would be improvised solely from the objects in my room. I didn’t know which vision to believe. I didn’t know if those two lives looked so different from each other in practice. A big life. A small life.”
The novel is not delicate about the struggles of staying sober, though in Monk’s case, it’s less about curbing his desire to drink (though he still feels this) than the difficulty of filling the expansiveness of time he now has. His friends and family are frustratingly suspicious of his sobriety (of his mother, he says: “My sobriety was not something she was obliged to foster like the orchid of some out-of-town neighbor.”) and he spends a large portion of time at bars or somehow involved in their madcap nocturnal adventures.
His sobriety gives him license to feel superior to anyone who still drinks, “regardless of the other factors of their lives or mine,” and casts Monk is a slightly pretentious light, though it’s clear this is more of a defense mechanism to protect himself than a genuine dislike of everyone he comes into contact with. Overall, it was an insightful recorvery narrative” “Sometimes I lay in bed and stared at the blankness of the ceiling, wondering what the rest of my life would entail. Sometimes it seemed wide open – obscenely so, like I was standing on a rooftop of the city spread before me, to horizon line low, the sky as big as people were always insisting that it was. But other times the future seemed so compact, condensed to fit within the four walls around me, as though my entire life would be improvised solely from the objects in my room. I didn’t know which vision to believe. I didn’t know if those two lives looked so different from each other in practice. A big life. A small life.”
mikaylareadsabit's review
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
AMAZING debut novel. I was lucky enough to receive a an ARC of this book, and I loved it the whole time! Reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye in the writing style and the energy of the story. Felt like I was wandering through life with the main character, I love how things kinda clicked into place for him at the end. Does a great job showing how sobriety is just the next (although crucial) chapter in someone like Monk’s life!
rachelmansmckenny's review
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I usually don’t love linked short story collections but this one is a winner.
stanfordstocker's review
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5