Abby Stern is a thirty-four-year-old, curvy, single woman who has found herself. She walks dogs and other gig economy jobs to pay her bills, lives in a tiny, cluttered but comfortable apartment and is all but engaged to Mark, a gorgeous doctor Abby first met as a pre-teen at fat camp when he was at least double his adult, buff size.
Then she meets Sebastian while fueled by copious amounts of tequila at her friend’s bachelorette party. Let’s just say sparks fly, but they don’t exchange numbers.
Fast forward to Abby’s best friend, who runs a bicycle tour group, who needs Abby to lead a group. Abby is an avid cyclist but has never run a group on her own. Because she loves her friend, and cycling, she agrees, and the next ten days are filled with enough crises to fill several books!
The cycling is almost a character in this book, and since I know the author is very much into the sport, I often felt like I was chatting with a good friend about it and daydreaming about the lovely Empire Trail. But each of the dozen participants complicated that dream in ways that I would never have guessed. One of the participants is Abby’s mom, thin, elegant and body obsessed. Another one is a pregnant teenager. And the most complicating one, is Sebastian. The one-night stand.
Weiner never just writes a love story without hitting major social issues, though her answers are admittedly best only for her character. This book is no different. Empowerment of women, abortion rights, weight shaming, sex shaming, aging, social media limitations and even the weather fill this lovely journey with clouds. Not everyone will agree with how they are handled, but the story will be hard to put aside.
Props to the author and editors for the title! Breaking Away was one of my favorite movies in the seventies, and the tie in with the bikes was fun!
Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC!
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