Wow! I loved this book so much! It is not my normal genre but I'm glad I branched out! I was hooked right away! I love the real-life stories with raw authenticity and honesty.
One of my favorite take-aways was about her kiddos being a part of their community and loving them and seeing them by going to public schools instead of private/homeschool. Could not agree more.
It was rough reading about her thoughts on parenthood because I LOVE having kids and can't imagine a better life without them but her honesty is so refreshing!
Great read! Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Essayist Elizabeth Passarella has written her second collection of essays, and they are well worth the read. ‘It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway” is an eye catching title, and the essays are thoughtful, humorous and very entertaining. (Her first essay collection was “Good Apples”, which I have not read. Yet.)

Author Passarella was born in Memphis, and has lived in NYC since she finished college. She has one husband, three children, parents and in-laws, and many friends. So this “slice of life” writer has plenty of ammunition: humor and understanding prevail. We read about her husband’s medical problems, raising young children, getting to know her mother-in-law, the benefit of “girl trips”, and that you should go to every wedding you are invited to. One of her words of wisdom, “God has to be in the middle of it. We cannot save ourselves.”

My favorite essay was about losing her six year old in Times Square. Ms. Passarella had prepared him for this possibility by instructing him to find a mom, tell her his phone number and have her call his mom. But he got confused about explaining that he needed help. Ms. Passarella eventually found him in the crowd. Here’s what Ms. Passarella learned from this, “I don’t have to get the message right. Because Jesus is on the crowded sidewalk looking for me.”. Oh, that started my tears!

Highly recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for a digital review copy. This is my honest review.

what a quick, lovely, easy to read essay collection. i’ve come out of this with a new respect for women from the south moving to new york, magazine journalists, water skiing, and mothers homeschooling during 2020. passarella’s essays read like letters from an old friend, and her tone is delightfully light. i really did enjoy these.

some said they were slight put off by the religious undertones that were not mentioned in the collection’s blurb. although they were there, i will say they didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the essays in any way.

in all: a pleasant read, and such a nice change from my usually much more depressing non-fiction choices.

i received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review :)

Very well written, but I didn't connect emotionally with it and found it a little bit too repetitive. I am also in my early 30s and so it was not necessarily super relatable to me. I would still recommend it though if the description sounds interesting to you.

A fun collection of essays in which I related to her on many of them (especially since I think we probably live within blocks of each other). She talks about teaching her kids her cell phone number in case they get lost (and other urban survival skills) - my husband made our information into a song for our kids while we walked around the city (“my parents name is… we live at…”) in case they got lost. I related completely when she talked about losing focus on a kid in Central Park and other parenting mishaps.

I fully enjoyed the humor in her essays and laughed out loud while reading it. It was interesting to hear her perspective on living in New York City- she’s a southern transplant who has now lived in NYC for years. Like many others who have read this, I felt like we were sitting having coffee on the UWS and chatting.

This was a super enjoyable read (and listen) and reminded me why I like humorous essay collections.

4.25 Stars

Thank you for the opportunity to review this ARC

This book is packed with many short stories of the author’s life. Some I found really interesting. Others, not so much. Overall it was well written and easy to read.

This was my first collection of essays that I’ve read, and I’m not sure this genre is for me. I liked the author’s tone and her sense of humor, but I kept finding my mind wandering the longer I read. Her stories were entertaining but, for the most part, didn’t seem to fit the “moving forward” premise of the subtitle.

First, I don’t give away stars super easy so I don’t want anyone to see this and pass. This book was sweet and an easy read. A great start to my 2024 readying challenge. Elizabeth writes in a way that you feel so connected to her, almost like a best friend. The entire book is conversational in a way that makes it so lovely. I did find some of the stories a bit tedious but I don’t typically read this style book.

The book description says “honest and hilarious” - I wouldn’t say hilarious. I didn’t find myself smiling/laughing but I did this the stories were honest and refreshing.

I loved this book. I even followed her on Instagram and got to see the couch! I loved how the stories wove together and wish I could meet "Lois!" Funny and poignant, it was a great read all around.

This book has stories and explanations, but I couldn’t really dive into it or even get past the section that last caused me to put down the book. Description mad3 it sound like th3 book for me, but unfortunately, it was not.

"Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. More kids, more problems."

This was a light-hearted, enjoyable memoir. It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway was an easy and quick read. There were funny parts, there were a few serious parts but overall it was cute. Life changes, life happens.

I appreciated her advice on dealing with in laws and middle schoolers, having a 6th grader myself!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was a fun book of essays by a talented NYC writer. I did get bored around 60% in. She has a very specific audience-middle aged, Christian women. She's pretty privileged, which she admits, but sometimes it rubbed me the wrong way. I found some of the essays better than the others, but still glad I read this!

While I thought the writing style was pretty great and enjoyed the author's wittiness, I don't think the structure of this collection made much sense. It was like a memoir out of order, we jumped around chronologically and plotwise and it didn't feel as cohesive as it could have.

I also did not realize this was a Christian imprint or that there would be so much talk of faith in the book. While I didn't mind it a lot, I would have liked to be aware beforehand that there would be talk of faith and the Bible. It would be simple to write in the blurb, add in that the author uses her faith as a learning tool, to understand herself, discusses her relationship to God, anything that signals that we will hear Bible stories and definitive stances about God and Christianity.

There truly is nothing like the camaraderie found in a women’s restroom.

This memoir is a collection of short stories. There are tales about meeting Anna Wintour, NYC doormen, the physical effects of childbirth, to name a few.

The first ~15% of the book is about her husband’s fainting episodes and them going to doctors to learn more. It’s pretty detailed, so if you have phobias surrounding medical descriptions, I’d skip chapter 2.

The rest of the book picks up from there. Admittedly, if I weren’t reading for the purpose of posting a review, I probably would have DNF’d after Chapter 2. I can see the loose connection that needing to apply for life insurance has with her fathers death. But it set a different tone for the book than I was expecting.

I was shocked to find that people once CALLED Southern Living magazine and receptionists would track down the recipes from old issues and mail them. That’s wild. In the height of my magazine subscription days, it never occurred to me to do that. So funny.

Note: there is a lot of religion/belief talk that gets dropped into the stories. I wasn’t expecting it from the book description, so it’s worth noting.

Another note: there are many details within the stories that make it known this author has risen in socioeconomic status. It’s somewhat subtle, until it isn’t. I think if you’re 40+ you might not even notice it woven in. Anyone else, it does stand out and kind of took me out of the storytelling a bit.

Thank you to the punisher & NetGalley for my digital copy!

This essay collection was funny, relatable and real. I really enjoyed the day to day details about parenthood in New York City especially during covid Now I really want to see the finished apartment they renovated in their building!

essay collections are quickly becoming one of my favorite forms of non-fiction to read and this book was no exception

This book was an interesting take on self help. I found the author to be relatable. This made it easier to relate to this book. I don't agree with every point but found some points to be very helpful.

Such a fun read. Elizabeth Passarella manages to make you think and laugh almost simultaneously. In our divisive world, she has a winsome way to invite someone to look at life through the lenses of grace and believing the best! This is an uplifting read about the power of place, valuing those different than us and both honoring our desires and yet not holding them too tightly.

I absolutely loved this quirky memoir! The relationships and tangents (squirrel moments) were incredibly relatable and it all tied together to be a beautiful story of growth and family and friendship!

This was a great essay collection. I loved the author’s candid and relatable stories and enjoyed her humor and wit and her storytelling. I really enjoyed the NYC setting and getting a glimpse into life and motherhood in the city. This collection centers around the author befriending an older lady who owns an apartment in her building as they go through the slow and complicated process of buying the apartment from the older lady. It’s about change and moving forward and life in the city. I will definitely read more from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.