Title: Separation Anxiety

Author: Laura Zigman

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Doubleday

Publication Date: 16th April 2020

Rating: 4/5

Cover:

Summary:

Life hasn’t gone according to Judy’s plan. Her career as a children’s book author has taken an embarrassing nose dive. Her teenage son Teddy treats her with a combination of mortification and indifference. Her best friend is dying. And her husband, Gary, has become a pot-addled ‘snackologist’ who she can’t afford to divorce. On top of it all, she has a painfully ironic job writing articles for a self-help website—a poor fit for someone seemingly incapable of helping herself.
Gleefully irreverent, tender, funny and uplifting, Separation Anxiety is a novel that celebrates the ‘squeezed generation’; a book filled with heart and humour for anyone fumbling their way towards happiness.

Review:

The premise of Separation Anxiety really intrigued me and I can now confirm it is just as interesting as it sounds! Judy is a woman who is struggling in her life for a variety of reasons and one day when going through her basement she finds a baby sling. She decides to put the family dog in the sling and basically starts essentially wearing the dog almost constantly. It is a way of finding comfort in a world she feels lost in and I loved the way the author told Judy’s story.

Separation Anxiety is an original and surprisingly moving story of a family in crisis. It covers so many different aspects of life including grief, marriage, parenting, love and loss. It’s a quirky book with some amusingly awkward moments that had me laughing and cringing in equal measure. However, it’s also an incredibly poignant novel that feels devastatingly real and piercing in it’s delivery. The relationship between Judy and Gary is beautifully portrayed and complex. It’s the small, seemingly unimportant moments between them that invite the reader to become fully invested in their marriage and to root for them as a couple.

I became really rather fond of the characters in this book and just wanted the best for them. Although I perhaps can’t relate directly to Judy in terms of what she is dealing with, I think pretty much everyone is able to understand loneliness, shame and feeling like you’re different or strange which is what makes Separation Anxiety deeply moving and thoughtful. This is a funny, sad and quite beautiful story about how people relate to each other and find their way through the struggle life can sometimes be without losing themselves. I’d definitely recommend!

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Thank you to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the blog tour invitation. I received an e-copy of the book from the publisher. My review is my own honest opinion.