{"id":31383,"date":"2017-08-11T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=31383"},"modified":"2017-08-03T09:20:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T14:20:04","slug":"escape-by-barbara-delinsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/escape-by-barbara-delinsky\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape<\/I> by Barbara Delinsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What would you do if one day you woke up and realized that the life you\u00a0were living\u00a0was not the life that you wanted for yourself? Walking into work and having that one bad day, that one interaction, that pushes you over the edge? How would you handle it? Would you try to work through it? Talk to your significant other? Would you take a much needed vacation? Quit your job? Start all over in another city with\u00a0another job\u00a0and\u00a0another family? All of these are questions that Barbara Delinsky tackles in her novel, Escape<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Escape<\/strong><\/em> <\/a>tells the story of Manhattan lawyer Emily Aulenbach. She is 32 years old and has been married to another lawyer, James, for the last seven years. Emily has become increasingly frustrated with her life, both professionally and personally. In law school, she dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse and campaigning for the little guy. Always the idealist, she hoped to brighten the world. Now she sits in a cubicle\u00a0alongside hundreds of other lawyers in their tiny cubicles, a headset plastered to her ear, talking to victims of tainted bottled water. You’d think that this would partly be Emily’s dream, except for the major fact that she is on the bottler’s side, NOT the victims.<\/p>\n

After a particularly devastating interaction with a victim, Emily has had enough. She packs up, leaves town, and just drives. Looking for a purpose in her life and an escape, she\u00a0meanders\u00a0aimlessly\u00a0and eventually ends up in\u00a0the place that gave her great joy ten years ago. This small New Hampshire town is rife with good and bad memories. Emily has to find a way to deal with both, interact with\u00a0the people from her past, and convince her husband and family that she’s okay and not crazy. By putting her happiness first, Emily’s selfishness reverberates throughout all the lives of the people that she knows. She must work to find her center and to decide what she actually wants. Add in an animal refuge, a former lover, and someone in desperate need of legal advice and Emily’s escape brings up some dilemmas that she cannot run away from.<\/p>\n

This book did not go the direction that I thought that it would, for which I am very grateful. I have read too many novels where the main character decides that she needs a complete do-over and throws her entire life into shambles trying to find herself. Delinsky goes another route of self-discovery that still hits all of the necessary emotional highs and lows, but thankfully misses all of the predictable actions. This was my first Delinsky read and I am quite ready to pick up another! There was nothing that didn’t delight me within this novel.<\/p>\n

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This book is also available in the following formats:<\/p>\n