Review: How to Make Life Nice by Sarah Ménage

by Susan Roberts

It's always nice to read books with characters older than 50 who are still trying to figure out their lives.

Amazon affiliate links are used in this post. A free book was provided for an honest review.

February 2017; Better & Better; ebook (346 pgs)
women's fiction 

I thought that the character of Georgina was very well done and well balanced. She wasn't a perfect person and her faults were on full display as well as the good parts of her personality. How to Make Life Nice is a coming of middle age novel for a woman who still didn't have life figured out but was definitely working on it.

This was an excellent debut novel and I look forward to future books from this author.

About the Book:

"A compelling examination of love, loss and family ties... beautiful, assured, lyrical... complex, amibitious and clever." Journalist and academic Charlie Lee-Potter

A coming-of-middle-age tragicomedy in which our empty-nesting, partnerless, parentless, jobless but resolutely cheerful heroine has to confront the awful truth that life isn't always nice and being nice doesn't always work.

The family home has to be sold. A flat full of boxes, a garden choked with ivy. Contrary to her brother Will's advice, Georgina proposes to sort it all out by herself. She has underestimated the power of the past. Buried alone with 200 years' worth of accumulated stuff - letters, photographs, odds, sods and bits and bobs - she begins to lose touch with the present and her own world begins to dissolve.

Set in the Bristol of nowish, and Stratford-upon-Avon during the summer of '76.

Buy How to Make Life Nice at Amazon

Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling. She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their grandson. Susan reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook.

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