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An incisive, hilarious, and tender exploration of fatherhood, love, and family life through the story of a widower who attempts to become the father he didn't know he could be.
Charlie Goldwyn's life hasn't exactly gone according to plan. Widowerhood at thirty-three and twelve-hour workdays have left a gap in his relationship with his quirky five-year-old son, Caleb, whose obsession with natural disasters and penchant for girls' clothing have made him something of a loner at his preschool. The only thing Charlie has going for him is his job at a prestigious law firm, where he is finally close to becoming a partner.
But when a slight lapse in judgment at an office party leaves him humiliatingly unemployed, stuck at home with Caleb for the summer, and forced to face his own estranged father, Charlie starts to realize that there's more to fatherhood than financially providing for his son, and more to being a son than overtaking his father's successes.
At turns heartbreaking and hilarious, This Was Not the Plan is a story about loss and love, parenthood, and friendship, and what true work-life balance means.
"[Algers] new novel of love, loss, and parenthood is readable and relatable...uplifting and memorable." - Publishers Weekly
"A breezy, uplifting read." - Booklist
"Alger's darkly comic novel offers an engaging take on single parenthood from a man's viewpoint." - Library Journal
"This Was Not the Planhas everything I love in a story: wit; fresh, stunningly human characters; pitch-perfect sentences; piercing emotion; a big, gorgeous mess of a family; and a big, gorgeous heart. As soon as I finished, I wanted to read it again." - Marisa de los Santos, author of The Precious One
"I love the writing of Cristina Alger. Her characters are complex and beautifully drawn." - Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Rumor
"Note to reader: clear your schedule before you start this book, because you won't be doing anything else till you finish it." - Jeff Arch, screenwriter, "Sleepless in Seattle"
This information about This Was Not the Plan was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Cristina Alger is a lifelong New Yorker. A graduate of Harvard College and NYU Law School, she worked as a financial analyst and a corporate attorney before becoming a writer. Her first novel, The Darlings, was published in 2012. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter, and is currently working on her third novel.
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