BOOK TOUR x @Instabooktours: Okay Then That's Great by Susannah Wise

 

"I'm standing in the booze aisle if Waitrose Essex Road, when I see my dead sister. It's the third sighting in as many months."

Things aren't going great for Marnie right now. It could be the grief of losing her sister, it could be her publisher threatening to drop her, it could be the vivid dreams she keeps having about having a penis, or it could be that she keeps seeing her sister who's supposed to be dead. Her family don't see the ghost of Perdita, but then again they can barely see Marnie who's still alive, and her husband and kids seem to have no idea what's going on either. 

And to top it all off, her actual therapist might be more delusional than she is right now. But when she meets a new friend, Katherine, who might actually be a reincarnated author, maybe another ghost, she knows she has to start piecing it together. 

But maybe, there's more to this story. She might be losing her grip on reality, or reality might be losing it's grip on her. And Marnie doesn't know which one is scarier. 

"I'm not in a book. This is honestly what happens. My life is a collection of clichés. I wake up."

I didn't quite know what to expect when I opened this book, but this is the kind of book where you need to expect the unexpected. It took off right away, painting us a picture of the growing unrest and madness in Marnies life with Susannah Wises' trademark quirk and flair. She is awkward and clumsy and gloriously chaotic - but beneath all the chaos there was a painfully relatable person, a woman trying to cope with loss, to learn about her own despair and desires, and lost in a confusing world. 

We're shown the many different angles to her life, snapshots and connections to create a person that becomes familiar and clear. All the characters are crafted with the same delicate care, from her overbearing, cult-like parents, her slightly odd children and her octogenarian therapist. 

The storytelling starts off somewhat normally - but Wise has a way of making any normal setting just seem slightly off, something so subtle you can't figure out exactly what is wrong but know something isn't right. From here, everything quickly descends into confusion, moving quickly and erratically like a fever dream but the beautiful clarity held within the last chapters is nothing short of a masterpiece. 

Between the madness, there is a tender tale about the absurd reality of grief and it's affect on the human condition. Full of whimsy, wit and warmth - it's very clear that Susannah Wise is just getting better with every page.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to Instabooktours and Susannah Wise for inviting me to take part in this tour. I was gifted a reviewers copy of this title in return for an honest review.

CW: therapy, religion, sex, mental illness, death.