Will You Won’t You Want Me? by Nora Zelevansky
Published by Macmillan on April 19th 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, General, Humorous, Romance
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
Marjorie Plum never meant to peak in high school. She was queen bee. Now, 10 years later, she’s lost her sparkle. At her bleakest moment, she’s surprised by renewed interest from a questionable childhood crush, and the bickering with her cranky boss – at a potentially game-changing new job—grows increasingly like flirtatious banter. Suddenly, she’s faced with a choice between the life she always dreamed of and one she never thought to imagine. With the help of a precocious 11-year-old tutee, who unknowingly becomes the Ghost of Marjorie Past, and a musician roommate, who looks like a pixie and talks like the Dalai Lama, Marjorie struggles with the ultimate question: Who does she want to be? Nora Zelevansky’s Will You Won’t You Want Me? is a funny, often surprising, novel about growing up when you are already supposed to be grown.
I was definitely interested in reading this book just because of the unusual title. I felt like I was picking the pedals of a flower while I was reading the title! I had never heard of author, Nora Zelevansky, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this book.
The main character of Will You Won’t You Want Me is Marjorie Plum. In school, Marjorie was one of those popular girls and had a promising future in hand. Once she’s out of school and doesn’t have that persona to lean on, she’s forced to be an adult.
Fast forward, high school is over and the real world has begun. Marjorie is at a good job, living in the city with her best friend, Vera and they are living the good life until Marjorie loses her job. Her decade-long relationship with her “bff” ends as Vera ditches her and the apartment for her boyfriend and Marjorie is forced to re-evaluate her life. Marjorie begins to feel that her life has no direction. The author shows readers exactly how unfulfilling Marjorie’s life has become and how she knows what the problem is, but not how to solve it.
Without money, a house or even friends to count on, she needs to give up life in Manhattan for a room in Brooklyn and learn a new lifestyle. Exiled in Brooklyn with a girl named Fred as a roommate, she has to figure out a way to get her life back on track. She has to make some difficult choices along the way to discovering what really matters the most.
I love how the story of this book teaches us that popular people don’t have a guarantee that they’ll have a bright future. Things won’t always go the way you want it and you have to deal with it. The author’s use of the third person point of view writing in this book was perfect for telling this story. The range of emotions in this book and the detailed descriptions of the settings really gave us readers a great story that we can remember even after the book is finished.
Nora Zelevansky is a novelist, journalist and editor. As a freelance writer, she covers style, beauty, travel, design, food, wellness, health, fitness, TV and film and burgeoning cultural trends, as well as writing profiles and humor essays. Her work has appeared in publications including ELLE, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, T Magazine (The New York Times), Travel + Leisure, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Style.com, SELF, Salon.com, The Daily Beast and The Washington Post. She is also the editorial director for upscale wellness website, Live The Process.
Zelevansky attended New York City’s Calhoun School through high school, then Scripps College of The Claremont Colleges in California. After graduation, she moved to LA to work first in film development & acquisitions and then in politics, before transitioning into freelance writing. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NYC with her husband and baby daughter amidst copious artisanal nooks.
Thanks to BookSparks for the advance reader’s paperback copy of this book in exchange for my honest review as part of their April Showers Blog Tour -#itsrainingbooks!
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