Ordinary Hazards | Anna Bruno | Review

Blurb

Everyone always wants to know why relationships fail. It’s a spiteful curiosity thing, schadenfreude, but also a self-preservation thing. People want to understand how to avoid the fall.

The answer is complicated. There isn’t one reason, one event. It has something to do with smoking cigarettes and drinking all night. It takes into account thousands of hours of labour on a small house, projects finished and unfinished. It is late-night conversations and inside jokes and making love and having a child. The answer is wrapped up, shrouded and ensconced in prioritization, ambition and work. Caring about these things is not the problem. Not caring about them is death.

Emma has settled into her hometown bar for the evening. It was in this very room that she met Lucas a few years back, on a blind date. Nine months ago, in unimaginable circumstances, they divorced.

As Emma listens to the locals’ banter, key facts about her life story begin to emerge and the past comes bearing down on her like a freight train.

A powerhouse in the business world, why has she ended up here, now a regular in the last bar on the edge of a small town? What is she running away from? And what is she willing to give up in order to recapture the love she has lost?

As Emma teeters on the edge of oblivion, becoming more booze-soaked by the hour, her night begins to spin out of control with shocking results.

Review

A complex, character-driven & moving debut!

This novel is a slow-burner but it creeps up on you and pulls at your heartstrings. Set over the course of one evening in a dive bar on the edge of town main character Emma is musing the life and loss, she wasn't always alone but she is now.... why? what happened?

The writing is all-encompassing, amusing in places, and heartbreaking in others. There are some brilliant lines in the book, I found myself highlighting throughout it is so quotable. 

    "You can worry all you want, but you'll never predict the thing that will destroy you."

The atmosphere in the bar is perfectly captured, you can easily imagine you are sitting right there, part of the community.  

It's ending is devastating but it leaves you with a sense of hopefulness. There is only so far you can run before you have to confront your emotions in order to move forward. 

This is a fascinating accomplished debut! Perfect for fans of Celeste Ng. I can't wait to see what Bruno does next. 

A huge thanks to Anne Cater & Scribner for gifting me a copy in return for an open & honest review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐