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Review: Go Gentle by Maria Semple


Blurb from Goodreads:
Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a "coven"—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.

Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue . . . and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting and she’ll risk everything to get it.

Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.
 
I truly loved this author's previous works and count Where'd You Go Bernadette as one my all time favorites so I definitely had high expectations for this one.  Unfortunately, it was SUPER far fetched to the point of not being entirely enjoyable?  It started interesting and I did like the characters but then it went off on this weird path that didn't work for me.  Hope you have better luck!

Go Gentle comes out next week on April 14, 2026, and you can purchase HERE.  

Before I entered the restaurant, I stopped and took a moment.
He might not be here.
He might be gay.
He might be married.
He might ask me for money.
He might chew with his mouth open. 
It's a thing Stoics do: meditate on worst-case scenarios. Which is not about working yourself into a neurotic doom loop. It's about preparing for things not to go your way. So when they inevitably don't, you can say, "I expected that." 
Think of it as inoculation against emotional extremes. Because who needs those?

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