The Only Thing There Is to Want is a literary memoir by author Sarah Hepola. The writing is a little more stylistic than your typical memoir. I imagine this will appeal to some readers and slow others down.
Sarah Hepola looks back on three defining loves of her 30s and 40s. Men who forced her to reckon with the relationship patterns left staring her in the face once she got sober. Love one is a married man. Love two is a much younger man who is a situationship she’s trying to will into something more. (Honestly, it’s a little wild that he gets a full third of the book given how few times they actually meet in person.) Love three is a detective she’s hot and heavy with for a stretch, and then returns to later on, considering giving him a second chance.
Hepola isn’t always easy to root for. Her choices are sometimes baffling. But you keep turning pages anyway, hoping she’s going to get it together. She sort of does. There’s no tidy happy ending, but there is something like growth. Maybe?
This reminded me of one of my favorite non-celebrity memoirs, Group. Same energy — an unreliable narrator of her own life, making decisions you don’t understand, somehow keeping you riveted anyway.
Recommended for fans of Group, fans of literary memoirs, and readers with patience for a character who makes genuinely baffling choices.
PS: Thank you to NetGalley and The Dial Press for providing me with an Advanced Reading Copy.
