Three relatable thirty somethings drive this ode to womanhood. Learning the hard way to love
themselves the women teach invaluable lessons.”—PeopleEveryone who loves Sally Rooney should
be reading Jana Casale!”—Julie Buntin author of Marlena Three women confront the compromises
they’ve made to appease the men they love. Joy and Annie are friends and roommates whose
thirty-something lives aren’t exactly what they’d imagined. To make ends meet they decide to
rent their extra bedroom to Theo who charms Joy with his salt-and-pepper hair and adoration of
their one-eyed cat. When Annie goes to live with her boyfriend Theo and Joy settle into a
comfortable domesticity. Then Theo brings home Celine the girlfriend he’s never mentioned who
is possibly the most stunning woman Joy has ever seen. Joy resolves to do whatever it takes to
hold on to him falling ever deeper into an emotional hellscape of her own making. She is too
obsessed to realize that Celine’s beauty doesn’t protect her from pain. Haunted by an event
from her past Celine can’t escape her shame and finds herself in an endless cycle of
self-sabotage. Annie is baffled by Joy’s senseless devotion to Theo but she’s consumed by her
own obsessions: she can’t stop parsing her commitment-phobic boyfriend’s texts in an exhausting
mission to maintain his approval. At work where she fully embraces her natural assertiveness
Annie is a star. But when an anonymous letter lands on her desk accusing her esteemed and
supportive boss of sexual misconduct she is forced to decide who and what she’s willing to
stand up for. Perceptive mordantly funny and full of heart How to Fall Out of Love Madly
examines women’s many relationships—with one another their mothers their work men and
themselves—to reveal their underlying power and complexity. It asks why do so many smart
compassionate otherwise empowered women tolerate egregious behavior from the men they love?
And what will it take for them to reclaim control?
