Dennis is 26, has recently started his sobriety journey, and we join him when he's living at home with his parents, who early in the book, kick him out of home.

There's some really beautiful writing in this book, and the journey Dennis is on is a very 'real' one; Dennis is desperately trying to make up for lost time, and find where he fits in the world, and slowly comes to realise that he's expecting too much of life; change demands more of him than he's given.

The story is told through Dennis' various interactions with friends and acquaintances throughout the book, and his struggles with understanding where and how he fits.

This book was well written and had some quite beautiful prose; it was kind of written a bit like a road novel, and it was very character, rather than plot-heavy. I found it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I do think people who love road novels, or coming-of-age stories will really enjoy this book.

Thank you to Astra House and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Michael Deagler's 'Early Sobrieties.'

Thank you to Astra House and NetGalley for this ARC of Michael Deagler's 'Early Sobrieties.'

We follow Dennis Monk as he spends his first year of sobriety couch-surfing with friends (new and old) and acquaintances all over South Philadelphia after a decade or more of wanton drunkenness.

I wouldn't say that this is an overly original narrative or theme but I can say it's highly enjoyable due to the warmth and humor that the author injects into his characters and story and also for the way in which he makes South Philly and its myriad and changing neighborhoods into one of the indelible characters in the novel.

Monk - a son of a blue collar Bucks County family - is a recovering alcoholic who eschews the 12 steps and figures that his getting sober is reward enough for the people he might've harmed along the way. He starts off in the novel self-righteously proclaiming his sobriety to all and sundry but comes to loathe having to explain himself.

It's an interesting structure, while there are characters who have a thread throughout the book we engage pretty deeply with each new housemate for a while and then, all of a sudden, he's in a new spot with a new housemate and the previous one and the reason for their jettisoning not discussed and we never hear from them again in most cases. I eventually liked it because I think it reflect the disjointed nature and lack of forethought to his meanderings across South Philly for that year.

Monk is a great character - very human and with all the nuances and burgeoning self-awareness you'd hope to see - and all of the consistent and fleeting characters that appear in the book are also very enjoyable - from the blue collar no-nonsense mailman father to sex club owning neighbor we meet briefly towards the end.

I'm not sure what the approach would be but I would love to know more about what happens next for Monk.

Deagler has written one heck of a novel.
As the title suggests, this book is about one young man who gets sober and deals with all that entails.

His parents kick him out of their home when he is newly sober. He relies on the kindness of his friends as he couch surfs with them all. He deals with all of the issues confronting the newly sober in a world that they are navigating for the first time.

He encounters former friends that he drank with, former classmates and others that he knew when he was drunk. He finds sobriety and the accompanying adulthood tough roads to ho.

This book is a good look at what is a really hard time for the newly sober. I have been sober decades and found this book true to form in the issues - and the young man himself.

A story about when one person gets sober but the others around him do not, nor have much regard for his sobriety. Reading this, I found Monk to be acquiescing to the realities of his lifelong peers and not doing much work on himself to create a new reality for himself. Brand new feathers on the same old bird.