If Rufi Thorpe’s wacky tone and Elin Hilderbrand’s sense of place and quirky wealthy side characters had a baby, Alan Opts Out is what you’d get. Alan is an ad executive who, after having a crisis of conscience about the ways his work has fueled consumerism, decides to take a leave from his job and move into his children’s playhouse in the backyard of their suburban Connecticut home … where he is eventually joined by the family’s adopted pet lobster.
The book alternates between Alan’s perspective and his social-climbing wife Vivian’s, two people who have been living in separate worlds and not really working as teammates. My favorite characters were their younger daughter, who has a magical ability to talk to animals (which sounds like it shouldn’t work in an otherwise realistic story, but the author really pulls it off), and their odd-duck next-door neighbor, who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her.
I’d recommend this to fans of Rufi Thorpe and Elin Hilderbrand, yes, but also to fans of Amy Poeppel and other writers who favor stories about big-hearted weirdos. Nothing bad happens, but it’s never boring – exactly what I’m looking for in a summer read!
ZPS: Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an Advanced Reading Copy.
