The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4.75)
Spice: None
Genre: Women’s literature, magical realism
Pages: 368 - Published: 11 November 2023
Dates Read: 22 Sep 2024 - 22 Sep 2024
After absolutely falling in love with the first book I read by Sophie Cousens, Is She Really Going Out with Him?, I immediately picked this book up and started reading. I’m talking the same day that I started and finished that first one.
I said it in my review of ISRGOWH, but I’ll say it again, I am officially a Sophie Cousens fan. I received ISRGOWH as an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for a review, and it was such a lovely discovery to find this author’s work.
I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one as much as ISRGOWH, I mean that book really set the bar high, but I ended up really enjoying this for different reasons.
This book is more women’s literature with a dash of romance, so as long as you aren’t expecting a full on romance and/or any spice at all, you’ll probably enjoy this for its fun concept alone. Especially if you are mid-20s and feeling super lost or if you have ever felt lost in life and like everything was a mess.
The Good Part was heartfelt, funny, thought-provoking but not too deep, fast paced, and worth the read!
I’d definitely recommend this if you’re looking for something lighthearted with meaning and sweet moments.
About
Lucy is quite possibly having the worst day of her life: She wakes up soaking because her ceiling is leaking her upstairs neighbors’ bathwater, finds out her best friend is moving out and leaving her with the other weirdo roommates who cook smelly things and never replace the toilet paper, she isn’t where she wants to be career-wise and makes so little, she ends up eating a croissant out of the trash, she gets into an argument with her friend and meets the creepiest of guys, her phone dies on the walk home and her shoes fall apart.
Talk about murphy’s law, sheesh.
The only saving grace of this terrible, no good, very bad day is that she comes across a random store, where she might be able to wait out the storm and charge her phone. The store is a ghost town except for a woman who so kindly lends Lucy some change so that she can make a wish on their old-timey wish machine. After a day like that, what does she wish for? To skip forward to the good part of her life where everything isn’t so shit.
When she wakes up the next morning with a strange, but handsome man in her bed, a ring on her finger, a few more wrinkles and two more kids than she had the night before (she had none), she is understandably shocked. Has she skipped ahead to the future she’s always wanted or has she forgotten a huge chunk of her life? And as she begins to embrace her new life and relationships, she has to decide: Can she go back, and if so, does she want to?
Thoughts
I have felt like Lucy so many times in my life. I mean who doesn’t want to fast forward through shitty jobs, or even mundane things like grocery shopping and house cleaning? If you say you don’t, you’re a liar! Except imagine if you do fast forward, you’ll get thrown into the deep end at work and at home, with big pitches at a high powered job and kids who have established routines! I don’t think I could handle it and would probably end up having a mental breakdown in my closet, Moira Rose style.
I won’t go too into detail on how Lucy handles her new life, the good and the perhaps not so great. But what I will say is that following her along on the journey was fun, sometimes touching, and always enjoyable.
Some of the best moments are when she’s getting to know her husband, Sam, and her son, Felix. Her husband is super sweet. I think any woman would feel lucky to have him—plus I hear he’s got great forearms.
“What is it about good forearms on men? Like, I want to arm-wrestle him and I want to lose.”
Felix was probably one of my favorite characters in this, strangely enough. He had some of the best lines, and I loved how utterly suspicious he was of Lucy. I think he was maybe around 10 or 12, so he was very familiar with his mom and was constantly keeping Lucy on her toes with a pop quiz-esque question she would know if she was his real mom.
The real question this book posed is one I don’t think I could answer: If you could see the “good part” of your life, if you had some time to really experience the marriage, would you stay and miss out on 16 years of your life or would you go back and risk things not working out the same way, in the end?
I go back and forth, but I guess I just don’t know how much I believe in fate and whether or not things had a real potential to mostly end up the same. What if your kid was different? What if you never meet your husband? What if your career never takes off? But 16 years?! Life is so short and 16 years feels like such a monumental amount of time with no guarantee of how long your life will be overall.
What would you do? Which is the right option? Tell me in the comments!
I have two minor, teeny tiny complaints and they’re why, for me, this book just barely misses the full five stars.
One: I wish this book was a little bit longer. I don’t know if they were aiming for a certain length, as if maybe her target audience prefers reading something around 400 pages, or what. I just think there were certain things that could’ve been fleshed out a little bit more. Take, for example, her relationship with Sam. This book wasn’t really a full-on romance, but if she spent more time with the two of them, getting to really know each other even more and navigating their marriage, I would’ve ate.that.up! Plus then it could’ve been not only really thoughtful and fun, but also romantic as hell.
Two: I am maybe slightly torn on how I feel about the ending, but maybe that is the intended feeling the author wanted to instill.
Quotes
“What is it about good forearms on men? Like, I want to arm-wrestle him and I want to lose.”
“Life is never sorted. It’s just an undulating shit storm of problems and pleasure.”
Words I Learned/Looked Up
Foible: A minor weakness or failing of character
Besotted: Made senseless, sottish, or infatuated; characterized by drunken stupidity, or by infatuation; stupefied.
Links
My review on Is She Really Going Out with Him?
