Happens Every Day

I just finished Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies. It's not a book for young readers and it's not a book to dive into if you're looking for a little light escapist entertainment. It's an uncomfortably frank memoir of divorce and family disintegration told from the POV of a woman struggling to keep her marriage intact. As the title suggests, there's nothing remarkable about the story itself, although the honesty with which it's told is remarkable. And painful. It comes with the subtitle an all-too-true story. And it's a bummer. I've never been divorced or married and that had zero impact on my ability to identify with the writer. It's a book about hard reality, about the gut wrenching fact that sometimes a person has absolutely no control over the biggest things in life. The story made me mad. It frustrated me. I couldn't say I enjoyed (it's not that kinda book) --but I'm glad I read it. And I can recommend it.

I'd be interested what other readers think about this book--especially if you're married.

Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story by Isabel Gillies, Simon & Schuster 2009