Sarah Winslow wakes up with a terrible hangover… and a kid in her boyfriend’s bed. She makes the horrifying discovery that, due to a head injury, it’s not a hangover. She’s got memory loss. Overnight, five years have disappeared, and she’s no longer the hard-living, fast-track, ad executive party girl she thinks she is. Now, she’s the unemployed, pudgy, married, stay-at-home-mom of three kids under five, including twins. As she slowly pieces together the mystery of how her dreams and aspirations could have disintegrated so completely in five short years, she finds herself utterly failing to manage this life she can’t imagine choosing. When Sarah meets the man of her dreams, she realizes she’s got to make a choice: Does she follow her bliss and “do-over” her life? Or does the Sarah she’s forgotten hold the answers to how she got here… and how she can stay?MY REVIEW:
Wake-Up Call by Amy AvanzinoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wake-up Call by Amy Avanzino is a 2015 Henery Press publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a really cute story about life and the choices we make and what is really important in the long run. Sarah Winslow gets an opportunity to see how having expensive things, a high powered career, and money is not all it's cracked up to be, especially when compared to her home in the suburbs, her wonderful husband and her three beautiful children. But, before Sarah can appreciate all those things she will go through a traumatic experience, one that will slowly put things into perspective for her, but Sarah is not the only one who get a wake-up call.
I think many people have planned their lives out one way, only to have their priorities change along the way. But, Sarah doesn't remember why or how she wound up with this life, with this body, and hates every minute of it. She is desperate to reclaim her old life by touching base with old friends, going on a diet, and flirting with another man who makes her feel special.
While this book is very heartwarming, sweet and whimsical in some ways, I think it can touch a nerve too. How many of you have caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and were hit with the sudden realization that you are not as young as you once were, you've maybe put on few pounds, you don't spend hours in front of the mirror, you don't frequent the trendiest nightclubs, and your career, which you once thrived on, no longer takes top priority in your life. Do you miss those things? Do you feel like you are in a rut? Sure, especially if you are a woman and have made the decision to be a stay at home mom. You trade one in for the other and if you weigh the pros and cons you will draw the same conclusion Sarah did in most cases. But, you may find yourself feeling wistful, missing some of that fast paced life, and maybe even panic a little, like Sarah did.
But, having said all that, this book in not heavy reading at all. It's laugh out loud funny in places and I enjoyed watching Sarah's character development. I did find it interesting that Sarah's amnesia and her subsequent behavior caused her sweet, patient, long suffering husband to read some subliminal messages Sarah's “new me” character was sending him. So, while it's Sarah we are the most focused on, her family is also responding to her and growing along with her.
Overall, I really liked this story and had a lot of fun with it.
Amy Avanzino received a Bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a Master's from the University of Washington. She is a former advertising executive, who has spent the last several years writing, while doing extensive hands-on research for her WAKE-UP series. She’s a contributing writer of Hap Scotch, a play performed at the 2008 Frigid Festival in New York, which won two Audience Choice Awards. Amy currently lives in the stands above the football fields, basketball courts, and baseball diamonds around Folsom, California, with her husband and four children
