Agatha Arch has an impulse control problem. So when one of the moms from her moms Facebook group posts yet again about the same old topics, she wants to answer in disparaging emojis. When she realizes that a skunk is living under her porch, she names it Susan Sontag. And when she finds out that her husband is cheating on her with the local dogwalker, and that the cheating is happening right now, in the shed in the backyard of their house that has their two sons inside, Agatha grabs the hatchet and starts chopping that shed down. The dogwalker doesn’t even have time to put her dress back on before she runs for her life.
And that’s how Agatha Arch found out that her life was about to be upended.
Her husband moves out, to the dogwalker’s house, and her two boys go too, half the time. That leaves Agatha a lot of time to obsess over all the things that scare her, like beans, and to gear up for spying on her husband and his new partner. With the help of her Bear Grylls bobblehead, her handy spy pants, a head lamp, and her new Leatherman super tool, Agatha sets out to try to figure out several things: who the interloper is (a young woman who has suddenly appeared in their small town and has been seen begging for cash), what happened to Balderdash (a runaway dog much talked about in the mom’s Facebook group), and why her husband suddenly left to make a life with someone else.
Between angering her neighbor for not cleaning up the shed mess, ducking her agent’s texts and messages about the thriller she’s supposed to be writing, talking to Shrinkydink about her fears (her therapist), and befriending a smart teenaged girl in the park to get help flying her fancy drone, Agatha is a busy woman.
But she is also lonely. And sad. And afraid.
And as the weeks go by, Agatha realizes that there is really only one choice for her, to build a life for the sons she loves so much—she has to let go and move on. She has to figure out how to life now. And she has to let down some of the walls she’s built around herself and let others in. She has to make friends.
Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything is a dark and charming story of a woman whose life is upended and has to figure out how to right herself again. Author Kristin Bair’s characters are smart and funny and feel real, and the writing is clever and snappy. This book reminded me a lot of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? as they are both smart books about smart women who find themselves at a crossroads in life. These are both very likable books.
I got to listen to the audio book of Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything, narrated by Soneela Nankani, and the voice for Agatha was at times scornful, derisive, or frustrated—in other words, Nankani’s narration fit the character perfectly.
Agatha Arch is a lot of fun for readers and listeners. She feels a lot of pain, and that can be hard to get through, but the payoff is worth it. Agatha is a complicated, some would say difficult woman, but in the end she steals your heart away and you root for her to live her best life.
A copy of the audio book for Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything was provided by Dreamscape Media through NetGalley, with many thanks.
