Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I could appreciate what this book was trying to do, but ultimately it didn’t land. I was interested enough to keep reading, however I couldn’t wait for it to end. I did have an affinity for the side characters - that was well done. Ultimately, I just wanted Olivia to land the plane.

Title: Olivia Strauss is Running Out of Time
Author: Angela Brown
Publisher: Little A
Pub date: 01/01/2024

Olivia set aside her career for her marriage and her son. Now, she’s turning 39 and wondering if her dreams to be something other than a mother and wife are unattainable. At her age, what can she still attain?

For her birthday, her friend Marian, gives her a gift that sends her spiraling down a rabbit hole. Marian always pushed Olivia out of her comfort zone but, has she gone to far this time?

Parts of this book will resonate with those who have put their career on hold and have reached a time in their life when they reflect on what could and couldn’t be. Her anxiety is felt throughout the story. You might even become a little retrospective yourself. While even Olivia sees herself as selfish, her selfishness creates some good drama.

This is also a story of friendships and how they impact us. As she struggles, she sees the people around her a little differently. If her story touches you, you may just find yourself seeing those around you a little differently too.

Thank you #NetGalley and #LittleA for the opportunity to read this moving story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little A for the ARC of Olivia Strauss is Running Out of Time by Angela Brown.

This was a heart warming story of friendship and relationships, and growing as an individual. This story looks at the question many of us probably think about at some point or another, what if I knew how long I had left. Would you really want to know? What if you were t sure it was accurate? Or if you only knew the date but not how? These are all pieces that are explored in the book as Liv thinks she is running out time quite literally and how she wants to live differently. Ultimately we see how this impacts her marriage and her friendship with her best friend. I found this to be a bit of a tear jerker towards the end. Enjoyed this one, felt like some of the disagreements between characters was a bit repetitive.

At 39, Olivia feels like she is indeed running out of time. A fun birthday spent with her friend Marian turns a bit weird when they undertake a genetic test to determine their 'death date', and it just gets weirder from there. I was intrigued by the premise, and I could identify with feeling like Olivia does. I did find that the relationship between the two friends came across as a little strange, and the character of Olivia was a little annoying and hard to sympathise with. An interesting read overall.

Thanks to Netgalley and Little A for the ARC.

Angela Brown was “running out of time” to get my attention and move this story forward. This storyline tested my patience and was quite repetitive. How many times were we expected to believe that she could realistically run into Poppy? Were we expected to continue to care about the test results for the entire story? The ending was good and somewhat redeemed the first half of the book.

Recommended: nope
Not for much plot, not for likeable characters, a lot of angsty repetitious thoughts and the same location and complaints for most of the story

Thoughts:
Oof, God, this was tough. Honestly if this wasn't an ARC I was reading I would not have finished it. I had to speed read the last quarter of it just to make it through.

From the start I just really didn't like the main character. She was whiny and her humor is not a kind I enjoyed which was just further annoying me. For the entirety of the story she's extremely self-centered, and I realize it's like the definition of having a midlife crisis but wow. It was too annoying ended alienated me from her. Maybe I'll feel differently when I'm 39 but at 29, goodness, she was not somebody I enjoyed or could root for. I didn't like her at the end, either.

The plot itself was thin as well. I struggle to say there even was a plot. It was pretty much just her angst about her life, which as acknowledged already, annoyed the crap out of me. Most of this book is just her going "oh no I need to start living my life I can't believe I haven't yet!" Tiring. Especially when it felt like she took very few steps to actually do anything thoughtful about it.

Much more of the story than I expected takes place literally at the center where her friend takes her. It took a long time for them to get there in the story, but then once they did, they just never left. I got really tired of them saying "oh you know what we should do? Just go back to the center!" Like oh my God, move on!

As far as what the apparent twist was, I saw it coming a million miles away and I feel like the character should have too if she wasn't so stuck up her own ass the whole time. Not a fan, not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review.

Solid 4 stars ⭐️

You know that feeling when you read the right book at the right time? I think Liv’s story was that for me. The author did a great job at dissecting exisitential questions in a dare-I-say fun way. While there were times when the MC was a bit annoying or selfish, I could connect with her in general, and could self-reflect while reading. At the end of the day, this is what I expect from a novel, and I got what I wanted.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

"There is no such thing as a perfect life. There are only perfect moments." If you had the chance to know the date of your death, would you want to know? Would you make changes to your life? New career? New hair? Olivia Strauss is at the end of her 30s and doesn't know what happened to all those dreams her 20-something self once imagined. Does she still have time to make them happen? Does she still want to?
This story is a really profound look at middle-age and the identity crisis most of us find ourselves in at that time. You could pretty much see the ending coming a mile away but, I enjoyed the story and the reminder that "...every woman’s dying wish was to simply spend her final days—however many of them she had left—being able to exist in the simple quietness of her life. To have more time to enjoy and appreciate the beauty in that." 3.5 stars.

This book just did not work for me. While I appreciated the message that the author was trying to convey, by the end of the book, I felt like I had been bludgeoned over the head with it. I generally love a magical realism premise, and I thought the plot device of having the main character learn her supposed “death date” could have been interesting. But this book was far too convoluted and heavy-handed. There is way too much time spent going back and forth to the wellness clinic that gives Olivia her death date, without any eventual payoff of any importance. The relationship between Olivia and her best friend, Marian, is confusing and unbelievable for most of the book. They are annoyed with each other for superficial and/or inexplicable reasons most of the time, and every time that it seems they will make amends, they just spiral back into another odd estrangement. It’s difficult to understand why they were friends in the first place. The relationship between. Olivia and her husband is also unrealistic. He spends most of the book being overly indulgent to her selfish and odd behavior. When she quits her job on a whim without any consideration of how this may affect her family (and then wonders why he calls her selfish!?!), he finally shows some frustration, but within a few pages, he has seemingly forgiven her and moved on (while also deciding to have a mid-life crisis of his own). The “twist” ending was obvious from very early on and ultimately just felt contrived to further hammer home the “be thankful for what you have and live your life to the fullest” messaging. These messages may be true and important, but they are also overdone and generic. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Can relate to this book as someone that feels like just yesterday I was 32 and now I am going on 45. I feel like I am constantly running out of time too.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but the MC was unsufferable and dislikeable to such a degree I almost didn't want to finish. I wanted to see more of a relatable story, but it was so erratic and focused on death. The plot wasn't bad, just the characters were not well developed and relatable.

An original premise, but it could have been better executed. I struggled to get into the story at first; it was chaotic and all over the place. Olivia seemed a bit like a whiner. However, halfway through, it gets better. It was unfortunate that Olivia and Marian's friendship cooled for a relatively stupid reason. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the storyline involving Sunshine.

I got this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely love the cover for this book, it was what immediately got my attention - it’s so fun and inviting! The writing was easy to follow and read and I found the topic relatable. At 39 years old, Olivia Strauss is worried about getting older and she has a long list of things she would like to achieve in life. As a once aspiring poet, she feels as though this dream is no longer within reach now that she has to deal with the day-to-day life of adulthood and being a parent to a young child. Her best friend Marian, however, seems to haven’t had changed much since college and is still enjoying life with a stable writing career. For their shared birthday, they take a questionable genetic test that determines their expected death date. Olivia’s results only concern her more and she tries to make amends to her lifestyle and start living for herself.

Whilst the subject matter was relatable, the book didn’t really hold my interest for too long. Olivia constantly stresses about her death date to the point of obsession and begins to annoy Marian about it without even considering the fact that maybe her best friend is going through a tough time as well. Olivia comes off as selfish, assuming that Marian’s happy with her life just because she has achieved some things that Olivia wish she had. The two could have better communication as it ends up a bit messy and bittersweet for them in the end, even if the lying and mistruths were intended for good purposes. I did like reading about how Olivia tried to turn her life around by making rash decisions.

Really more of a 2.5 star. Almost a 3!

This book does have strengths. I thought the original concept was intriguing, it has some humorous moments, and usually I hate first person narration but I actually enjoyed it here, which is saying a lot for me. I also liked the overall pacing, and for the most part I liked how the novel was structured. The overall plot was an interesting one. I saw the twist coming early on, but it didn’t ruin the journey.

But, to be perfectly honest, if I was one who DNF’d books, I probably would have DNF’d this at least midway through. In the end, I am glad I didn’t because the last quarter or so actually did rescue it for me a bit. That’s where I felt there was more emotion and connection to the characters.

I think the reasons I didn’t like this probably have a lot to do with my personal taste. I read primarily for characters and language, and I really didn’t find that the characters or the relationships had a lot of depth. I felt like I was supposed to be invested in the relationships, especially the one between the titular character and her best friend, but there was nothing that really earned that investment from me. A lot relied on clichés. Even with the weighty topic, I felt like everything was surface level until maybe some parts at the end. I wish that last part was explored more.

And, this might just be me, but I found the child character to be absolutely obnoxious. His dialogue made him come across like he was much younger, and to me it felt a little unrealistic and pretty convenient for the plot in some places. I also felt like the younger colleague was a cardboard cut-out.

All in all, it wasn’t for me, but there were aspects that I think other readers would appreciate. The author bio in the back of the book mentioned that the author is at work on her second book, and I actually would consider giving her another try depending on the concept.

*Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher (Little A), and the author (Angela Brown), for the opportunity to read a free eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.*

This is a great book to read at the start of a new year! It made me feel all the feelings, I love the sarcasm, it was my kind of humor and I found those parts pretty funny. I like that this deals with major themes and gives an insight into a world not everyone can relate to but is nice to see talked about!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to review this!
As a 35 year old I really enjoyed this concept: what would you do if you knew how much time you had left? Would you change the way you approach life? It seemed like a version of The Measure and I was very onboard.
A lot of Olivia's musings about aging, finding worth in her family, career dreams versus reality: they all really hit for me. I absolutely understood so much of what she was thinking. Then it dragged on for a really long time. It got a bit repetitive and I found myself skimming.
I saw the 'twist' coming but didn't really mind, I just wish it happened sooner. I needed Olivia to have her character defining moment earlier and to get a bit more out of her interiority.
I still give this 3 stars because I did genuinely enjoy her internal ramblings and the examination of the women of communities: this was truly just great. I just wish it got to these points a bit quicker!

Maybe it was part of the poetic experience for me to sometimes have to feel the weight of them (Failure)

Olivia is me.
It's all of us.
With that anger inside us that boils hidden under the apathy…. Waiting to erupt.
It’s anger against ourselves, against the world that puts us in front of choices that are too difficult to make, against the need to necessarily let something go.
But at the same time we are stuck, because we don't know what we really want, what will make us feel good. It’s an ever-increasing frustration.

Olivia Strauss is running out of time is, at the same time, easy and difficult to read .
Easy because it has a fluent, light and digestible writing, perfect for having a book with content but without heaviness.
Difficult because puts you in front of life, the things you don't want to see, and the things you don't want to think about.
I think it's a book worth reading, because every now and then we need to remind ourselves that our life is now.

Really enjoyed the storyline of this book. It carried an unusual one and it was nice to read something other than a romance. Highly recommend for an easy to read and enjoyable book with likeable characters.

If you had the chance to take a test to see when you would die, would you take it? Would the results make you live any differently?

I loved the meanings behind this book 🥰 especially as this one had a slightly dystopian element to it, with the test that they can take to find out the date on which they will die. It was so interesting seeing how the characters reacted to the tests and their initial attitudes to it and how that changed. I felt there came a part in the book where I realised what was likely to happen in the end but that didn’t make me want to stop reading it. I only wish that there had been some chapters which spoke from Marian’s pov as Olivia’s character got slightly repetitive at times.

‘There is no such thing as a perfect life. There are only perfect moments’