Reviewed: “The Roxy Letters” by Mary Pauline Lowry

(I received a copy of THE ROXY LETTERS through NetGalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.)

In this anxious time of social distancing and self-quarantine…

Do you need a book to make you laugh out loud?

Do you need a story that will make you smile at someone’s goofy but absolutely legit antics?

Do you need to read about someone who has been kicked rather a lot by life but picks herself up and carries on through it all with an absolutely infectious (in a good way, not a COVID-19 sort of way) attitude?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I highly suggest you acquire a copy of THE ROXY LETTERS as soon as humanly possible.

I did not know I need this book in my life, but I did. And I’m keeping it to re-read later because I just know that Roxy will make me laugh and feel a little bit lighter all over again.

THE ROXY LETTERS is, in fact, an entire novel of letters written by Roxy to her ex, Everett. There is no record of what Everett might have thought of the letters, and Roxy doesn’t even give them all to him, but there is something inherently compelling about the way she is able to say everything to him.

I think a book about Roxy’s trials and tribulations written in a more standard format, whether first or third person, would not have been nearly as personal and interesting. I mean… in her letters, she talks about her ‘period underwear’ drawer and I can’t see that sort of thing working very well in a third-person narrative.

Roxy is not perfect, and she knows it. She’s hard on herself but she uses the letters as a way to be hard on herself before she talks herself out of the impending funk with wit, humor, and even grace.

Maybe that’s part of the reason this book is so damn good… because she uses writing and letters as therapy, in a way, and I do that too. And since Mary Pauline Lowry wrote the book the way she did, I got to read it as therapy and feel better for it.

So I offer my sincerest thanks to Mary Pauline Lowry for writing this fantastic, funny, free-spirited book.

Now go get yourselves a copy!