This Is Gonna End In Tears by Liza Klaussmann | Book Review

 [AD/Gifted - I received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.]

This Is Gonna End In Tears by Liza Klaussman

Star rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publisher: John Murray

Publication date: 7th July 2022

Blurb:

Growing up, it was always the three of them: Miller and Olly and Ash. They stuck together, like they were keeping a secret. They needed each other. As teenagers, they drove to LA, lived in a ramshackle place on the beach in Malibu, set up a record label. They were successful, best friends and Olly and Miller fell in love. Before it fell apart, it was beautiful.

Then Olly stopped looking at Miller the way he used to. Miller spent a night with Ash, which turned into a marriage. And Miller and Ash came back to Wonderland, the tidal island of sugary painted houses they'd run away from. Now Miller's forty and she feels like she's disappearing. She wears her tinted sunglasses so often sometimes she forgets the world isn't green. Ash is having an affair with a helmet-haired tv presenter and Olly's career is over. Olly doesn't want to think about what he was going to owe, what any of them owed, to each other. But after everything that has happened, Wonderland is the only place it makes sense for him to go.

Over a long, hot summer of Chardonnay and Chicken, Olly, Miller and Ash try to work out what it is that exists between them. They're so consumed with their love, losses and longing and the possibility of a redemptive third act, they barely notice what's going on between Miller's son, his best friend and the girl who lives next door.

Some summers are spent yearning for something to happen, others are charged with the terrifying, exhilarating, feeling that everything is going to change. Welcome to Wonderland. 

Review:

This is a wonderful novel focusing on friendships and relationships.

Olly, Miller and Ash were friends from childhood. Miller and Olly had a relationship before Miller ultimately married Ash and had a son called Nate. There is of course a complex relationship here. The three founded a record company together but life got in the way and caused issues between them.

Now, in the 80s, Miller and Ash haven't spoken to Olly in years, Nate is grown up and about to go off to college and they are all forced together again after Olly's Aunt Tassie is essentially kicked out of her nursing home. At the same time, Ash is having an affair with morning television host Candice.

Olly's former colleague, director Rodrigo Rodrigo comes to film Moby Dick at their hometown of Wonderland and the story follows the townspeople's excitement, Nate's newfound relationship with Olly after he gets him a job on the movie set and Nate's relationships with his friends Cam, Jess and love interest Suki. All the while exploring the past and present between Olly, Miller and Ash.

There is a lot to unpack with this novel and it is a beautiful read. It is the perfect summer book with its music references and it transports you straight to Wonderland in the 80s.