I'm not a big fan of black comedies, and this book reads like a black comedy. Because of that, I wasn't as interested in the main storyline of the book, but really enjoyed the side stories, which had more of a romantic slant. The main character, Daphne, is a little scattered and I'm not sure I would want her as a neighbor. I loved hearing about her relationship with the father that raised her and would have liked to have known more about her relationship with her mother, given the basis of this story.

This is a well written book, although a little too quirky for me. It was entertaining and a quick read. I can definitely see it appealing to readers.

Daphne has received her mother's 1968 yearbook (from her will) which was updated and maintained through the years by her mother. Her mother loved to attend class reunions and wrote comments about everyone who attended. Daphne did not see that it was something that she needed to hang on to so she put it into the recycle bin at her apartment building. A quirky neighbor who loves to scavenge the bin finds it and refuses to give it up. The neighbor sees herself as a documentary filmmaker and wants to use it as the basis of a film. Elinor Lipman is a good writer, I just found this book to have little substance with a plot that was not really something that I liked.

Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman will be available February 5, 2019 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. An egalley of this book was made available by the publisher in exchange for a honest review.

This was my first Elinor Lipman book I've read and I can understand the attraction to her characters and her writing. She puts together a nice and light hearted story that I would classify as a good palate cleanser. Nothing too serious, but entertaining.
Daphne Maritch is a small town girl living in NYC. Her mother passed away about a year ago, she is recently divorced by a man that is a serial cheater and she now is becoming a chocolatier. When her mother leaves her a prized possession in her will, her yearbook, Daphne has no clue why she would leave this to her and gets rid of it to declutter her small NYC apartment. What happens after is full of fun, laughs and some light entertainment. And perhaps a bit of a love story thrown in for some well-deserved characters.

An enjoyable, quirky, summer read type book. Nothing too intense, but fun and entertaining with characters that you want to root for. Even the villain isn't so villainous, but you definitely want to stick around and see what happens next. Fast paced and loved the headings to each chapter. Original storyline that will leave you feeling good when all is said and done. 3.5 stars

Thank you #Netgalley for my ARC

Daphne Maritch, finally free of Pickering, New Hampshire and stupid mistakes made even here in NYC, has read that book about decluttering your home and hugging your stuff to see if they bring you joy or hate or painful memories that may lead to eating a pint of ice cream with a half cup of bourbon on top. This will then lead you to the trash or recycle bins in the basement of your apartment building to throw out all the meaningless stuff you’ve collected, including the yearbook your mother left you in her will, God knows why, of the Class of 1968 from Pickering NHHS, her first teaching job right after college, that they dedicated to her, their yearbook advisor!
Worst are the notes and comments she added over the next 30 years after going to every one of the class’s reunions. Included within is a system of letters by each person’s picture indicating Marriage, Divorce, Skinny, Fat, Bald, etc. I mean, who does this?!
Satisfied with the free, clean space in her tiny apartment, Daphne’s bliss is ruined several days later by a note slipped under her door from a neighbor she hardly knows. Some Geneva person, retrieved, no stole her mother’s yearbook out of the recycle bin and now wants to discuss with Daphne!
The foundation of, “Good Riddance” is the sweet story above, told to the reader in snarky, funny and often snorting good laughter, (as in piggy laugh) dialog. Geneva Wisenkorn, is the neighbor from down the hall, whose social boundaries do not exist. Daphne’s responses to her are priceless and the sort you want to remember for when you are in any situation with an aggressive, no-nonsense person. (I bet one pops to mind right now!)
The only tidbit I’ll tell you now is that Geneva wants to make a documentary about the people in the yearbook, especially Daphne’s mother. Oh, and Geneva will not give Daphne the yearbook back; employing grade school rules: say it with me, “Finders Keepers.”
If I say any more, I would ruin three-fourths of the book for you. I can’t do that, really it gets better and better. You’ll meet Jeremy, an actor who lives across the hall from Daphne, and is sympathetic to her cause with Geneva. Also, her father, Frank Maritch, now a widow, all around good guy and former HS principal at that HS in Pickering, NH. He moves to NYC and starts phase two of his life as well. Think of him as the Tom Hanks of this book.
Those are the main characters, but you’ll meet a few more who will play some surprising roles in our funny little story. The plot is very good, all characters well developed, very well developed; and I was never bored.
I recommend this book for a lively, enjoyable read!

Thank you NetGalley, Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt, and Elinor Lipman

I received an advance ebook copy from NetGalley.

Other reviewers have provided fairly detailed synopses, and I will not repeat their efforts here.

The book is well-written and has enough unusual characters and situations (I don't believe I've ever read a novel with a Montessori teacher in it) to keep me turning the pages, or, rather, swiping the screen. The plot got more and more absurd as it went along, and like some other reviewers, I had difficulty rooting for any of the characters, except perhaps the piano teacher. The protagonist trashing--and then trying to retrieve--the one thing her late mother specifically wanted her to have did not endear her to me at all. Yes, I understand the challenges of a small living space, but really, how much space does an old high school yearbook take up?

Perhaps I've grown into too old a fogey to appreciate a story such as this. Even in my younger days, this protagonist would not particularly have resonated with me because she and I do not have a single thing in common. And even though they offer absolutely no mystery or intrigue and surely everyone pictured in them is dead by now, I have not gotten rid of my own mother's high school yearbooks.

Whether any given reader will find this book appealing is strictly a matter of taste. I appreciated the opportunity to read and review it, but it will not go onto my list of all-time favorites.

I enjoyed this book, though it was a little silly and predictable at times. The writing, still, was strong and the characters well illustrated. I would read more by this author in the future..

Elinor Lipman writes great young female heroes. I liked the characters and the urgency of the story, and I felt Lipman built up her writing style a lot in this book. I think I'd recommend to teens who like love, romance, self-sufficiency, and great writing.

This book, which I got as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review, was a light and unmemorable read – mostly fluff and silliness with a totally unlikable main character – definitely chick lit for the modern generation. It was well written in that it kept my interest and kept me reading.

There were aspects that didn’t make any sense at all such as the revelation of the newly elected state senator after silence for however many years. I didn’t care for the total disregard by our protagonist of her dead mother’s wishes and gifts. I guess it was a generational thing.

I’m giving 3 stars because it was well written – I just didn’t like the story or the main character.

This book isn't for me! But I'm sure there is an audience for it. I was drawn to the description but the book didn't hook me like I hoped it would.

This book was not at all what I expected it to be, but I still enjoyed it. The yearbook issue was a bit random as was the wacky neighbor.

I am a huge fan of Elinor Lipman, but I don't think this book is her best work. It's pleasant and well written, but never deeply engaged--for me. Under the fluff is a story of a woman who is discovering the reality of her parents' lives and navigating her own adulthood. Any book by Elinor Lipman is worth reading and so is Good Riddance. It felt like "chick lit" with the daffy Daphne and her romantic interest, but there is humor and subtle depth. The relationship between Daphne and her father was the most fully realized.

This was a funny, light and entertaining read. I loved the whole premise surrounding the year-book and the reunion. Lots of quirky characters!

Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with an egalley.

Writing: 3 Plot: 3 Characters: 3.5

Daphne Maritch inherits one thing from her recently deceased mother: a 1968 High School Yearbook with regularly updated snarky marginalia. Newly divorced and living in a postage-stamp sized apartment in New York City, she tosses the tome and focusses on her “recovery project” — a course in chocolate making. However, thoroughly obnoxious neighbor, Geneva Wisenkorn, has another plan. Purporting to be documentary film maker (her main claim to fame is a Matzoh docudrama), Geneva has latched on to the yearbook (procured through dumpster-diving) as her path to fame and fortune. Thoroughly horrified, Daphne spends the book alternating between the shocking discoveries unearthed and trying to keep those discoveries quiet. She is helped by her father — whose move to New York fulfills a life long dream — and hunky across-the-hall neighbor, Jeremy, who plays a small part in the successful series Riverdale.

Entertaining and reasonably well-written with great humor. The plot is a little thin, and the characters are a little too stereotyped for my taste. We find out at the end that it’s really a (happy) love story though it doesn’t read that way from the start. I would have been a little happier if our heroine found something she actually wanted to do with her life rather than just find a boyfriend … but that was not to be.

I'm so torn here. On the one hand, I love the concept. It's unique, it's interesting, and the book is well-written.

On the other hand...it's really hard to care about Daphne. She threw the yearbook away when it was the one thing she got from her dead mother, and she did it barely a year after Mom passed. That's pretty cold. I'd have liked the book infinitely better if the yearbook were lost due to carelessness or thrown out by a friend by mistake or something. I hated that Daphne threw it away - partly because she completely loses the moral high ground by doing that. Most of her tension with Geneva comes from wanting the yearbook back, but she really didn't have any right to it.

<spoiler> The fact that she destroyed the yearbook at the end? UGH. No matter what Geneva did, Daphne's mom deserved better. I also kind of hated that, after all her fighting with Geneva over making a documentary or podcast, she creates her own one woman show. Especially when the acting classes were Jeremy's idea. He basically manipulated her. And I loathe that she lied to Peter at the end almost as much as I loathe the fact that he apparently believed her with no proof at all.</spoiler>

I liked the subplots with Jeremy (mostly) and Daphne's dad. Dad is probably the best character, especially at the end. The book was an enjoyable read. I just spent too much of it annoyed with Daphne, so I'm not sure I really could recommend it. I started out thinking 3 stars, but the more I type all the things I didn't like, the more I wonder if it should be 2. I wish I could give 2.5 stars.

**Review based on ARC from Netgalley**

As I have been working through this author's backlist, I was excited be granted this ARC. This premise is SO fun! A yearbook inherited by Daphne, thrown out by Daphne and rescued by wannabe documentary filmmaker Geneva starts all the chaos and tension of the wild ride.
The yearbook was dedicated to Daphne's mom June, the yearbook advisor, by the class of 1968. June seemed obsessed attending every reunion and writing snarky comments in the yearbook.
Madcap, slapstick are the adjectives that come to mind. I kept picturing some scenes as a movie and casting actors in my head.
I love these wackadoodle characters because they were multi dimensional, not one was 100% good or evil. And the situations the author drops them in provide hilarity, painful glimpses and an eye roll or two. Just like real life.
This one releases February 2019. If you are not fond of waiting, check out some of her backlist in the meantime.

A fun, fast-paced romantic comedy filled with quirky and eccentric characters.

Daphne Maritch's mother, Jane, has always had an inexplicable attachment to the 1969 Pinker High School graduating class. As the school's yearbook teacher adviser, Jane has gone to every reunion for the last three decades and when she dies, she explicitly wants Daphne to have her marked-up yearbook.

Daphne, seeing no value in the yearbook, promptly throws the book out but when an eager wannabe film maker finds the yearbook and wants to make a documentary film about Daphne's mother and the yearbook, Daphne is forced to look more closely at the significance of her mother's life-long obsession. Why was her mother so preoccupied with this specific graduating class and what do all the markings she made about the students mean?

What ensues is a comedy of errors starring a lovable but foot-in-mouth Daphne (think Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the BBC comedy Fleabag) and an equally delightful supporting cast of interesting characters that really enrich the story. While sometimes the writing seems a bit clunky and the ending felt a little rushed after a whirl-wind adventure, Good Riddance was a very enjoyable read for fans of Eleanor Oliphant by Gail Honeyman, Matthew Quick, and Plum Sykes.

I have to confess, Elinor Lipman has always been one of my favorite authors. In 1990 I read “And then she found me”, I have followed her since that time. In her latest, Daphne, an unemployed citizen of Hell’s Kitchen, is clearing out her tiny apartment. She comes across her mother’s 1968 high school yearbook and pitches it into the recycling. Unfortunately, it is claimed by a nosy neighbor/documentary filmmaker. The book covers the hilarious struggle to reclaim the yearbook in order to protect her father from the revelations about to be aired publicly. I always enjoyed Elinor Lipman’s books and can easily recommend all of her titles.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC in return for an honest review.

Once again Lipman writes a novel unlike any other. How she finds her subject, decides on a plot—her motivation is wonderous. Although the novel wasn’t thrilling, crime filled, whatever her insight into characters is astounding. Great ending
Thank you Netgalley and publisher for giving the pre-publication opportunity to read for an unbiased review

Another wonderful Elinor Lipman novel ,had me laughing out loud and tearing up emotionally.When Daphne’s mother dies she leaves her a yearbook.Daphne throws it away not interested.Her neighbor notices it in the garbage looks through it and decides he wants to make a documentary out of it.Daphnes mother’s secrets will be revealed and the story& the fun. begins #netgalley #hmh #goodriddance.

Engaging and fun, Elinor Lipman does it again! Her heroine Daphne will have you laughing and tearing up all at once. With a unique premise and truly clever writing, this is one not to miss.