Sarahlyn Bruck

This was such a fun read for me as it reminded me Circa 1989 watching daytime soaps with my grandma. Callie has been the star of a top soap opera for 25+ years.
Her real life though is a true soap opera in itself. She has a 13yo son, who wants to perform, that thinks his father is dead. The father, however, is just a blackmailer and she has to pay him to keep him away from them. Her mom, a true stage mom, lives with her to keep watch over her son, but doesn’t believe her daughter always has her grandsons best interest at heart. She is dating her writer for years, who is in love with her and she has yet to bring him around her family.
What happens when the soap opera is cut from the Network?
Watch how the behind the scenes soap plays out in Calie’s personal life.… (més)

Daytime Drama is the story of Calliope (Callie) Hart, a middle-aged soap opera actor who suddenly finds herself facing multiple challenges including the cancellation of the show she’s starred in for a quarter-century, a failed relationship, conflict with both her adolescent son and mother and an emerging threat from the father of her son. Callie was suddenly immersed in the tensions created by a youth-worshiping industry and the daytime drama genre whose fan-base is rapidly aging. While Callie has the skills and recognition she requires to be a successful daytime drama actor, the cancellation of her show, Napa Valley, leads to a career crisis. Acting in soap operas while also being a single mother was so time-consuming that she never had the opportunity to become highly versatile in her craft. Interpersonal conflicts with her son, mother, and boyfriend created another layer of adversity that shakes her previously comfortable existence. Daytime Drama takes readers through Callie’s struggle to keep both her personal and professional lives together while charting a highly uncertain future.

Daytime Drama is author Sarahlyn Bruck’s second novel. She has skillfully created an interesting narrative where the complexities of Callie’s relationships with her son, mother, boyfriend, and the father of her son are developed and woven together in a convincing whole. Bruck also paints an engaging picture of both the life of a successful soap opera actor and the social and cultural environment in which she lives. I found myself drawn into the story. I eagerly wanted to know how Callie would salvage her career and relationships. I was curious to see how she might repair the damage created by the mistakes made in the throws of grief she experienced during the aftermath of the news of the program cancellation. At the end of the story, I found myself profoundly disappointed. The initial strength of the writing seemed to fall apart as the tensions that were so carefully developed earlier in the novel hastily dissolved into a “happily ever after” ending. The resolution of the plot seemed improbable given the complex picture painted of Callie’s thorny predicaments. The impact of this outcome was reminiscent of how I felt about the plots of soap operas I followed three decades ago. Perhaps it was the intent of the author to provide a soap opera-like ending to the novel. However, I feel that that the initial three-quarters of the novel was written well enough to have led to a more satisfying plot conclusion.… (més)

When your life is going along smoothly, you're happy, you enjoy your job, you love your spouse and kids, do you ever worry about something coming crashing down around your ears? Of course not. When life is amazing, there's no room for pessimism, doom and gloom, and worry. At most you probably say "Knock wood" as you grin and continue forward, right? But what if your perfect life screeched to a halt with a terrible tragedy that changed your whole world and made you examine your life in ways you never had before? In Sarahlyn Bruck's novel Designer You, this is exactly what happens to main character Pam.

Pam and Nate have a moderately famous DIY empire that they've painstakingly built over the course of their happy marriage. They met in college, created this successful business that is a true partnership, have a well-adjusted fifteen year old daughter named Grace, and live in a beautiful, old home in Philadelphia that they rehabbed together. Life is pretty perfect. Until... Pam comes home one day to discover that Nate has fallen off the roof of their home while working on a rooftop deck, a project they were chronicling for their business. Just that suddenly, he's gone. Pam is a forty-four year old widow who now has the weight of the world on her shoulders. In the numb aftermath of the funeral, she throws herself into making sure that Designer You, the business that was Nate's dream and is her sole source of income, keeps running. She has to do this, partnerless, while also navigating daughter Grace's grief, as well as her own. There's so much for her to learn and so much work keeping her busy, local client projects--from first nail to final polished doorknob, home expos that require travel, the book she has promised her agent, the public and social media faces of the company, and so on, that she feels completely overwhelmed, losing track of Grace (hey, but Pam's parents are staying to help her out with Grace so Grace's needs are being met, right?), and of her own emotional well being. Life, this new life, is unsustainable and Pam is going to have to step up, make some hard decisions, and discover where her priorities actually are.

It is hard as a reader to watch Pam flounder so badly. She is clearly swamped by her grief and can barely hold herself together, never mind a demanding company and a devastated teenager who is acting out. As Pam scrambles to try and keep all of her various plates spinning, it is clear to the reader not only that something has to give but, because of obvious clues sprinkled all through the text, just exactly what part of her life should give. As Pam muddles through the year after Nate's death, tidbits of their life together over the years come out. Rather than contradicting the view of their marriage as a great and strong one, they reinforce it, at the same time making it clear that Pam happily lived for Nate's dreams, never quite knowing what her own path would be outside of those dreams. She wasn't at all unhappy in that but it certainly made her even more at sea once Nate is gone. Because of the third person limited narrative, daughter Grace is fairly unknowable, only presented from Pam's perspective. The reader sees her grieving but, like Pam, not how to help her or steer her away from the poor decisions she is suddenly making. Pam is clearly overwhelmed and the writing about her desperate frenzy to keep the business afloat and her head above water is real and true. Readers who enjoy stories of hard won reinvention, recovery from unexpected loss, and having to embrace Plan B will root for Pam and Grace and cheer them on as they find hope for the future.… (més)