My thanks to Netgalley, William Morrow and Rainbow Rowell for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review.
For me, it's simple. There's a new book by Rainbow Rowell? Instant add-to-cart decision. Most likely it does not even require thinking, it's just see the new book and click, done. The thinking comes while waiting for the book to be released because then I have time to ponder what is the next character to come to readers from the mind of Rainbow Rowell. I've been a fan of Rowell's since Fangirl was released. I went back and read her previous works and have been moving forward with her ever since. Fangirl holds a special place on my shelves, followed by Landline, Scattered Showers, then Carry On? The order sometimes fluctuates, and I do own nearly every Rowell book, but the point is that when I saw that the next release, Cherry Baby, was available to request, I waited with fingers crossed to see if I'd get the chance to read this book.
It was a quiet kind of beautiful story, hearbreaking and yet heart-warming to meet Cherry and see her move through her past and her present to a better version of her future. Also, I really need to rearrange my Rainbow Rowell books. They deserve an entire shelf of their own, with room to grow with each new release.
Cherry Baby follows Cherry, the third sister in a family of five girls, who has been quietly dealing with the fact that her husband isn't coming back home. Her husband, Tom, is in LA, working on the film adaptation of his hit webcomic, Thursday, which is semi-autobiographical and has a character based on Cherry in it. The character's name is Baby and no matter what, Cherry can't escape her. Baby is a caricature of Cherry, a fat woman who was secure with herself until she saw herself as a character in her husband's comic. Now she has people staring at her, calling her "Baby", while she stays home with her ex's dog and lives in the house that still has all of Tom's things meshed with hers. Cherry has to figure out this new existence and who is going to live in it with her.
This book is somewhat straightforward, almost stream of conscious writing. Thanks to that, the pace is fast, allowing readers to move along with Cherry as she tries to live her life without her husband. Rowell excels at this kind of writing, giving meaningful glimpses into the workings of Cherry's mind, how she interacts with coworkers, with her family, with her oldest friends and with new ones. Rowell also provides chapters set in the past, scenes that show when Cherry met her husband, how they came to date and how they came to get married. We see how Cherry dealt with particular moments of her past where her weight seemed to dictate how a situation turned out. Each of these moments is heartbreaking, showing how much Cherry works to be comfortable with herself and confident. She is without a doubt confident, but the loss of her husband has changed the way she thinks and this book gives us these thoughts in a sequence that brings us through the journey with her to the other side.
This book is an opportunity to witness the everyday workings of a woman trying to move on. There is no big conflict, this is a more quiet, introspective journey. Cherry has been living with this idea of herself available for others to consume, and she needs to be able to cut herself away from that. Cherry has to be able to live the way she wants and know that she is being her true self, and that the Baby character is something that in no way encompasses who she is or what she means to people. This book might not be my new favorite Rowell book, but it is definitely a must read, very respectable book. I wanted Cherry to be happy, to be hopeful. Her journey to get there was eye-opening, and Rowell was able to convey this character in such a way that she felt alive in these pages. Cherry was always beautiful, and by the end of the book, she believed that again with all of herself. And that point made all the difference with this read.
Rating on my scale: I'm going with 9 Stars. I will say, this book did not go completely the way I expected it to. I loved Cherry but at the same time, I wanted just that much more to come about for her. In the end though, if you are a Rowell fan, you are in for a treat.
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