This story follows an aspiring writer Casey who is 31 and has just recently lost her mother. Casey is not where she feels she should be in life and the story follows her on her journey in trying to find success in her work, relationships and friendships.

I found the story to be a little slow paced to start of with but did find the main character to be relatable in her feelings about where she was at in life and also her feelings of grief. I really loved her relationship with John and Jasper, this was a lovely dynamic.

Overall I’d give the book a 3.5/5.

I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A great piece of character building but lacked in pace and plot.

I think due to current events I really need a book to grab my attention and unfortunately, I didn't find that with Writers & Lovers. I struggled through the first half and the second half was much better. Although I did enjoy it in the end, for me right now it just wasn't the right story.

I think the themes the book dealt with grief, money and perseverance could have resulted in quite a gloomy read however I did find this to be upbeat with a glimmer of hope in the tone.

I'd certainly look for more from Lily King in the future!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

I normally avoid books about writers like the plague but the description of this one captured my interest! I was not disappointed. I loved the realism and charm of this novel about a woman struggling to write, navigate her love life, come to terms with the loss of her mother and make her student loan repayments in the 90s. More in video: http://www.betterthandreams.com/2020/05/march-2020-book-reviews/

Why have I not come across the writer, Lily King, before? I wouldn’t have come across her now had it not been for Susan‘s recommendation of her latest book, Writers & Lovers, and her comment that Elizabeth Strout had said it was “Gorgeous”. I trust Susan’s judgement anyway, but when you couple that with Elizabeth Strout’s recommendation any writer has to be worth taking a risk on and believe me, Writers & Lovers truly is gorgeous.

Casey Peabody is, as she tells a gathering of students at the very end of the novel, thirty-one years old and seventy-three thousand dollars in debt. Since college she has moved eleven times, had seventeen jobs and several relationships that didn’t work out. She’s been estranged from her father since twelfth grade, and earlier in the year her mother died. Her only sibling, Caleb, is three thousand miles away.  When we first meet her she is living in Boston and working shifts in a local restaurant in a vain attempt to make ends meet.  Home is what is described as a ‘potting shed’ attached to property owned by Adam, a friend of her brother. Adam, however, is no friend of hers. Actually, I’m surprised he’s a friend of anybody. Two pages in and I’m making a note to myself to the effect of ‘why hasn’t somebody biffed him one?’ The only thing that has been a constant in Casey’s life over the past six years has been the novel that she is writing. This isn’t something that has just come out of the blue, that seventy-three thousand dollar debt has been amassed while she was at college on what we in the UK would call creative writing programmes. While fellow students have fallen by the wayside, abandoned their writing and taken up other jobs, Casey has persisted.

Is Adam impressed?

Is he hell.

‘How many pages you got now?’

‘Couple of hundred maybe’...

‘You know’, he says, pushing himself off his car, waiting for my full attention. ‘I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say’.
Maybe ‘biffing’ is too good for him. I’m thinking perhaps extermination?

Actually, the key phrase in that passage is waiting for my full attention because Casey frequently finds herself being belittled or ignored by men who have been brought up to think that the world owes them recognition and should dance to their tune. One of the reasons she is estranged from her father is because he has tried to dictate her career, pushing her to develop her talent as a golfer and scorning her ambitions to write. The only time we meet him is when he and his second wife turn up at the restaurant, Iris, where Casey works, in order to get her to turn over a ring of her mothers, the sole possession she has to remember her by. Then there is Oscar Kolton, a widowed writer with whom Casey enters into a relationship. When she accompanies him to a book reading he cannot cope with the fact that a female author has been accommodated in a larger venue.

‘I am forty-seven years old. I was supposed to be reading in auditoriums by now...I know I have a better book inside me. I have something big inside me. I just. Ever since. Fuck’. It almost seems like he’s going to punch the bricks of the gift shop beside us. Instead he lays his palms on the wall and lets out some jagged breaths.

Nearly every guy I dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, teacher’s prophecy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it’s how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I’ve met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.
But whatever you’ve been brought up to think, writing a novel is not something that just drops into your lap because it is your destiny, because it is something you want, something that you deserve; it is hard work. For Casey, it has been six years hard work, but it has been six years in which the act of writing has been that which is constant and steady in her life. It has been my home, the place I could always retreat to...the place where I am most myself. Casey, unlike those students with whom she studied, has stuck to what she truly wants to do. However difficult it’s been, she has remained authentic to who she wants to be regardless of what it has cost her and it is precisely that feeling of authenticity which resounds throughout the novel.  I don’t know to what extent Writers & Lovers is autobiographical, but the ‘Writers’ element of the book feels like a lived experience.

However, the book is not just about being a writer but also about being part of a relationship, and relationships have to be worked at as well. You can’t, like Oscar, just take the other person’s acquiescence for granted because they fit well into your life, or drop out for a couple of weeks, as Silas does, without telling them, because you’re having a bad time. Being in a relationship means accepting that the other person has needs and wants as well as you and respecting that; it certainly doesn’t mean being used as a one night stand. When Casey‘s brother, Caleb, visits and, having slept with Adam, realises that the encounter meant so much more to him than to his so-called friend, Casey consoles him by saying, he’s never going to allow himself the option of you or any other guy. He’s not that brave. And that is exactly what it takes to be in a relationship, to commit to it and work at it on a long-term basis, it takes bravery. This is something Adam will never understand, just as he fails to understand the commitment and sacrifice that writing her novel has meant for Casey. (Do you get the feeling I’m not impressed by Adam?)

It took me a little time to get into Writers & Lovers and that is something that I should remember as a reader; that the act of reading is one of forming a relationship with the writer to bring the actuality of the narrative to life and therefore it should be given the same sort of commitment on my part as the writer gave to it during the actual composition. Once you do give this novel that sort of commitment, it will repay you a hundredfold.

With thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the review copy.

When I read the short description of ‘Writers and lovers’, it seemed to be a great novel, but it started quite depressing. Casey lost her mum and her lover, lives in a pod shed, has a lousy job at a restaurant and is six years writing on her debut novel. But things are changing, she’s met two totally different men and she finds love again. She’s making new friends in the world of writers and her novel is making progress. It’s the story of a young women struggling with live and loss, but finds out in the end how to live and enjoy. It also tells a lot about the world of writers and how it is of working in a restaurant.
It’s a great story, but needs attention and concentration to read. The person of Casey is growing and the story kept my attention with every chapter. I loved to see how Casey grows and find her way in live with friends and new love, and finds herself in the end.
I started with my opinion that Writers and lovers seemed to be a great novel. In the end I can say, Writers and lovers is indeed a great novel to read.

This book wrecked me in the best possible way. The writing is so precise and there are some scenes that just leap of the page with the depth of feeling they portray.

Maybe as a wannabe writer I derived an extra level of positivity from this. I also loved how we saw the writers that Casey loved - we weren't just told that she loved writers and books.

I think towards the end it felt just slightly drawn out but the ending itself was so lovely. It doesn't matter that I didn't care for one particular plot point and I guess that section captured part of the way life is sometimes all build up for something much smaller than anticipated.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for letting me review this work. I liked the book, it was captivating, I found the writing style interesting even though it is not the kind I enjoy the most.

I cannot read this either. I'm using the kindle app on an IPad and everything else works fine. A pity as I was keen to read this...

Couldn't read due to there being a formatting issue so the text wasn't in the right order. Disappointing!

Really enjoyed this book thank you. Vibrant, believable, characters and an absorbing plot. I will ensure I look out for this author in the future!

Well the title of this novel partly tells what to expect. Camila/Casey is 31 and has been writing her novel for six years. It looks like she has followed at least some of the advice – publicly announce that she is a writer writing, set herself up with a regular writing routine and is (vaguely) in contact with other writers to give herself moral support and encouragement. But the needs of real life are standing in her way. She has huge (and rising) debts from her university years and that means she needs to work full time. At the time of the story this means she works at a busy local restaurant, with long and erratic hours, tiring work where support from a few developing friends is melded with a bullying atmosphere that will end in her being sacked. But money is tight, her accommodation is poor and uncertain, she is isolated from her father, her brother is elsewhere and her mother is recently dead leaving Casey massively distressed with grief.
Casey will recount the tale of how she gets through her innocuous days among ordinary people and we see a gradually evolving picture of the details of her life, albeit through her own perceptions and uncertainties. This is a compulsive tale that pulls the reader along at pace although things are not easy for Casey. Then when a writer friend Muriel invites her to a local book signing she will meet not one but two writers. Published author, new widower with sons, older man, Oskar and younger writer and poet, the largely unpublished Silas. She will start to consider a relationship with both, but both are uncertain about what they want from Casey and she is uncertain as to her attractiveness or entitlement to be with them. But we are told that nevertheless the emotional turmoils and pressures will create the spur (or mental state) where she can finally finish her novel – and even get it sent away to agents.
This is a very clever novel depicting as it does the writing process both physical and mental. The latter with its need to have confidence to invest time in writing with no real certainty that your work will be either good or considered fit for publication. Casey’s thoughts show this dilemma in all it’s painful twitches and unfolding. At 31 she has no successful long term relationship behind her. She would like a partner and home – particularly with the loss of her mother she has a need to build a new secure family space. But she comes from a dysfunctional family and lacks confidence in her own skills to build or retain a meaningful relationship. She painfully second guesses herself, her behaviour, and her ability to attract people throughout the novel – although at the same time we can see she is liked and appreciated by people around her.
But the resonance of this tale that stays is the depiction of her mental state. On top of her other challenges, she is undoubtedly deeply in grief for her mother – and is at the stage where loss is still a visceral matter as well as a mental adjustment of loss to move through. Her underlying depression is clear too – and we see a young woman trying to get on with life through her difficulties mental and practical – but who is so hard on herself, who has an image of herself as a failure, albeit against the quieter other message coming through the tale itself..
King is an extraordinary skilled writer to give us the contradictions with such subtlety in this rolling account. But of particular interest was that she chose to see the issue – not just of the emerging writer – but to meld it with a woman’s wider uncertainties of life. She could have presented Casey as merely gawky, but instead we have a sympathetic portrait of a woman trying very hard to get on with life – and to be a creative achiever too. This is a very fine read – I will be looking for more of her books.

I was so impressed with the breadth and ambition of Lily King's previous novel Euphoria, that I was perhaps inevitably disappointed with the much narrower scope and canvas of this one. Nevertheless, it is a moving and probably very personal book about the author (or wannabe author) as a young woman, meandering through life and low-paid jobs, worrying about health insurance, mourning the death of her mother and the years of not talking to her, unsure about relationships with men and writerly egos. It was enjoyable enough, and had some sharp observations about writers' ambitions and disappointments, but it feels a little too inward-looking. I don't feel it will have a huge appeal beyond the literary community.

Unfortunate I was unable to read or review due to formatting issues in the kindle version of this book.

I'm a sucker for books about writers so I fell in love with this story from the start. I thought the interactions between the main characters to be really engaging, though at times I thought the pace of the novel was a little uneven. I think this book would make a good choice for a bookclub as I can imagine that people will have strong views of the book.

As a huge fan of Lily King’s work I was longing for this novel. It is quite different in style to her other works and for me, was not as successful.