‘The Sweet Spot’ by Amy Poeppel

Blurb

In the heart of Greenwich Village, three women form an accidental sorority when a baby — belonging to exactly none of them — lands on their collective doorstep.

Lauren and her family — lucky bastards — have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive 70s wallpaper. Adding to the home’s bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in, Lauren discovers that she has already made an enemy in the neighborhood by inadvertently sparking the divorce of a couple she has never actually met.

Melinda’s husband of thirty years has dumped her for a young celebrity entrepreneur named Felicity, and, to Melinda’s horror, the lovebirds are soon to become parents. In her incandescent rage, Melinda wreaks havoc wherever she can, including in Felicity’s Soho boutique, where she has a fit of epic proportions, which happens to be caught on film.​

Olivia — the industrious twenty-something behind the counter, who has big dreams and bigger debt — gets caught in the crossfire. In an effort to diffuse Melinda’s temper, Olivia has a tantrum of her own and gets unceremoniously canned, thanks to TikTok.

When Melinda’s ex follows his lover across the country, leaving their squalling baby behind, the three women rise to the occasion in order to forgive, to forget, to Ferberize, and to track down the wayward parents. But can their little village find a way toward the happily ever afters they all desire? Welcome to The Sweet Spot.

Review

The sweet spot is exactly where you will feel you have landed after reading the first few chapters of this entertaining, heartwarming, and witty novel by Amy Poeppel. The book explores the unexpected intersection of three women’s lives and includes in its cast of characters the family, love interests, coworkers, and acquaintances of these women as well. Books that contain this many characters can sometimes be hard to follow. This is not the case here. As both a writer and reader, I marvel at Poeppel’s ability to have such an expansive number of characters, all while somehow not only letting us get to know them but feeling an emotional connection with them.

As for the setting, well, the story is dripping with New York vibes. I’m not a New Yorker but I’ve spent enough time there to recognize what makes New York the city that it is, and it is that which can be felt as the heartbeat of this book. The characters are all residents of Greenwich Village, a small neighborhood that can sometimes have small-town vibes. Residents who hate one another but can’t help but keep running into one other. Everyone knows everyone and everything about each other’s lives. And every street you turn onto and every place you visit, you encounter more quirky characters. I loved every bit of it.

The book, admittedly, did have a little bit of a slow start. This was probably my fault, as I came to this book after having been on a thriller reading binge, so I had to adjust to the slower pacing. I was slightly concerned because some of the prominent storylines the blurb hinted at had not yet been introduced even as I was approaching the 30% mark. But it wasn’t too far past that part where the pieces of the story began to come together, and I instantly realized why Poeppel needed to take the time to show us all that she did before leading up to those events. She needed us to get an idea about who these characters were and have a clear portrait of their lives painted in our minds. And she did just that.

Even though I said it had a slow start, let me say that nothing that I read at any point was ever boring. In fact, I was almost always smiling, chuckling, or shaking my head in frustration at some circumstance one of the characters had endured.

And when I say I loved all the characters, I really did. Even the ones I didn’t like at the beginning. Because Poeppel writes humans. Beautiful, infuriating, complex, and loveable humans. After all, at some point in everyone’s lives, we too have played a character that might not have been the easiest to like. We’re reminded of this in The Sweet Spot. Life and people are messy. But also, beautiful. And we should never give up hope. It’s all about learning to find the sweet spot at any given moment in our lives.

I wish I could go into more depth about these characters and the events that occur but their lives are so interestingly entangled, I am worried I might muddy the perfect way the story unfolds. But I can tell you this book has a little bit of everything. It’s got intrigue, romance, friendships, and did I mention it has humor? Here’s one of my favorite passages:

“Tomorrow morning,” the harlot said. “We’re going on a cruise in the Caribbean — well, a private one. I have a friend lending us her yacht.”

May you get dysentery and shit your bikini.

The book also has some wonderful reminders of important life lessons. Personally, this is something I like to touch upon in my own writing, so I am a sucker for a book that has some philosophical insight into what it is to be human. We witness each of the characters overcome their own obstacles and learn to come to terms with who they are after what they had hoped would happen turns out drastically different. Below is another one of my favorite passages:

“The mistake people make when life hits them with some unexpected, and often unprepared-for, catastrophe is they think they can just return to the way life was before. They try to rebuild exactly what they lost, but history proves how misguided that is. Disasters change everything, and we have to learn and grow from them, avoid the same kind of complacency that left us open to a blow to begin with.”

This was the first book that I have read by Poeppel and it won’t be my last. In fact, I’ve already bought one of her other books, Musical Chairs. As a writer with a WIP that has a hearty cast of characters, I’m excited to study more of Poeppel‘s writing and her brilliant way of introducing and developing her characters.

If you are looking for a book that will make you feel good. That will introduce you to a cast of characters — some irritating and some not — who will all become your friends in the end. A book that will make you feel all the feels. This book is the book for you. I highly recommend it.