banking on a better life

Madeline is a senior vice president at a major bank, balancing her boss’s demands with her perfectionism to create a strong presence and a solid performance. She was very happy in her workaholic world until she met Rob. At forty-nine, she fell in love, and she no longer wanted to devote her entire life to her job.

Her boss Steve, however, had other ideas.

While Madeline tried to make a little more space for herself, to enjoy time with Rob and to plan their wedding, Steve interrupts her dinners with calls about problems she needs to fix immediately, promotes his own favorite employees over the ones Madeline has seen work hard, holds grudges over small slights, and runs roughshod over her every boundary. And Madeline lets him. Especially when he dangles a promotion over her head.

But Madeline is increasingly unhappy. And when she doesn’t quite know why, she decides to see a therapist. At first, her sessions are a little baffling, like her therapist Olivia wants her to understand something that’s completely foreign. But little by little, as Madeline starts to put in the work, she starts to figure out what it is she really wants, and what she doesn’t want. And what she doesn’t want is a job that is painful and all-consuming. So one day, when Steve and his toxic ideas just get to be too much for her, she resigns, effective immediately.

As Madeline tries to find a new path for herself, her friend Emma stays at the bank, taking a promotion and taking over some of the work Madeline used to do. She has a husband and a teenager, and with her new workload, Emma struggles to make time for them. But it’s worth it to her, to be in the upper ranks of the bank.

As both women struggle with the demands of the lives they’ve chosen, they find themselves making choices about who they want to be and how they want their future to look. They are making decisions that affect their relationships, their families, and their own health, and each woman will have to choose for herself what success looks like and feels like as they come into their own power.

This Time Could Be Different is a look at what it takes to work as a woman in modern America. It’s a book about facing the demons of your past and finding strength inside of yourself. It’s about working in a toxic office and the reasons you ended up there in the first place. But mostly it’s about figuring out who you are what you want and going after it, whether it involves a typical workplace or going out on your own.

I really enjoyed This Time Could Be Different. I found myself caught up in Madeline’s story and rooting for her to find the peace she searched for. I thought this novel was smart and funny, but mostly I thought it was subversive. The power structures of the bank were outdated and Madeline’s ideas of herself and her work came from a traumatic childhood, but the words of her therapist and the exercises she assigned Madeline reversed a lot of that damage. Her story fascinated me, and she was the person I wanted to find happiness most of all.

This Time Could Be Different would be a fantastic book for a book club. There are a lot of threads to pick at in this story and a lot of good discussions that could come from the scenes of this book. Between Madeline thinking that there was a ghost in her and Rob’s home to Emma’s struggles with her teenager’s preferred pronouns to the workplace, the therapy, the relationships, the struggles for balance—this novel has a wealth of jumping off points for an important discussion, or even just as an opportunity to share stories of bad bosses over wine and cheese.

I think anyone who is struggling with their job, or with their future, could find some hope and healing in Madeline’s story, and maybe even find some inspiration for a better life balance and more self-care.

Egalleys for This Time Could Be Different were provided by SparkPoint Studio and Spark Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.