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A review by cotes
The Setup by Lizzy Dent
4.0
The Setup opens in Budapest. Mara is traveling alone, overwhelmed and lonely. She goes to see a palm reader. The palm reader tells her that love is coming with a tall man but that she must fix things in her life first. Then the palm reader’s water breaks and she rushes to the hospital. Left in the palm reader’s shop, Mara tries on her garb, only to be mistaken by a customer. A tall, handsome male customer, who’s a cellist. Mara decides to give him a reading and tells him that he can meet his soul mate, Mara, at a certain bar on the last Friday in August back in England. She’s engineered her destiny. Now all she needs to do is revamp her life.
This is the fanciful setup for the rest of The Setup. But where the first part in Budapest doesn’t seem realistic, the rest of the book is grounded in the day-to-day monotony of trying to change her life for the best. She’s been hiding out, working a job she doesn’t care about, wearing all black, and drifting away from her one friend. Mara just doesn’t seem invested in her life.
I’ve written two paragraphs and haven’t even mentioned the other love interest option. And that reflects the book’s focus. Yes, Mara ends up paired off with a talk, handsome man, but the book isn’t about that so much as her waking up and engaging with the world. The most interesting parts by far were watching Mara grapple with her feelings of shame and inadequacy to make changes. Seeing Mara’s personality emerge from the gooey cocoon is what had me tearing up. Her life isn’t perfect at the end, but she’s created something real that she fully participates in.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is the fanciful setup for the rest of The Setup. But where the first part in Budapest doesn’t seem realistic, the rest of the book is grounded in the day-to-day monotony of trying to change her life for the best. She’s been hiding out, working a job she doesn’t care about, wearing all black, and drifting away from her one friend. Mara just doesn’t seem invested in her life.
I’ve written two paragraphs and haven’t even mentioned the other love interest option. And that reflects the book’s focus. Yes, Mara ends up paired off with a talk, handsome man, but the book isn’t about that so much as her waking up and engaging with the world. The most interesting parts by far were watching Mara grapple with her feelings of shame and inadequacy to make changes. Seeing Mara’s personality emerge from the gooey cocoon is what had me tearing up. Her life isn’t perfect at the end, but she’s created something real that she fully participates in.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.