Good Joy, Bad Joy

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Synopsis

From the bestselling author of The Collected Regrets of Clover comes a vibrant, heartfelt novel about friendship over the decades, self-discovery, and what it means to have a life well-lived.

Break the rules. Find your joy.

For over eighty years, Joy Bridport has played by the rules: she’s been a devoted wife and mother, contributing to the community in her small Hudson Valley town. But her quiet existence is jolted when she learns that her best friend, Hazel, only has months left to live. Hazel has always been the more adventurous one of their duo, and she seems at peace with all that she’s squeezed out of her long life. Yet Joy realizes she can’t say the same.

Determined to live boldly and make the most of the time that she and Hazel have left together, Joy steps outside of her comfort zone—and into a bit of trouble. But as her foray into rule-breaking escalates into committing petty crime, Joy must consider what kind of legacy she wants to leave behind, and whether there’s a way for her to embrace the liberation that “Bad Joy” offers without losing all that she holds dear.

Is it ever too late to become who we’re meant to be? With laugh-out-loud hijnks and emotional heft, Good Joy, Bad Joy is a heartwarming and wise celebration of the choices we make, the friendships we cherish, and the lengths we go for love.

Synopsis source: The StoryGraph

Review

Genre(s): Literary Fiction
HB&W Rating: 4.5 stars
View on StoryGraph, Goodreads
Buy on Barnes & Noble, Amazon

This is such a beautiful, beautiful book.

While the blurb for this book would lead you to think that it’s all about the friendship between two octogenarian women, that friendship is really just a device for the overall true meaning of the book. Don’t get me wrong, the friendship between Joy and Hazel was beautiful, and I see many parallels between it and my relationship with my own best friend. Those parallels nearly brought me to tears on multiple occasions. However, to say that this book is simply about female friendship would be incredibly reductive when it’s about so much more.

This story shows us that it’s never too late to change, to embrace who you have always wanted to be, to break free from the chains of other people’s expectations. It’s a reminder to live in the moment and squeeze every drop of life out of every day that you can.

The writing is stunning in its simplicity and the book parlays a wealth of wisdom in its pages. As a reader, it truly felt as if I was being let in on a secret knowledge that can only be gleaned through experience, shared lovingly as if from a parent looking to spare their progeny any future mistakes and pain.

Joy’s story reminds us that it takes courage to truly live authentically. It is easy to empathize with her past experiences. They break your heart even while you understand the limitations of the situation. Joy reminds us that we’re all just doing the best we can. We all have expectations put up upon us from the moment we’re born. We are told not to rock the boat, to put a smile on our faces and keep going, often bottling up our feelings and emotions to our detriment and possibly to those around us as it breeds bitterness, resentment, and other negative feelings. Generationally, we have come a long way from the perceptions of what is acceptable and what is not, but even while we intellectually understand the need to step out of our comfort zone, in practice it’s an altogether different thing to be brave enough to do so. This book gives us permission to take those tentative first steps toward change and tells us that it’s never too late.

In turns tender, thoughtful, infuriating, funny, heartbreaking, and sentimental, Good Joy, Bad Joy is a novel that will stick with you long after you turn the final page. You’ll want to share it with all your best friends as a testament to your love for them.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press for gifting me an ARC of this title to review with my honest opinions.

Until next time,

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