A Story About Taking Your Life Back
Clover Hendry's Day Off
Women's Domestic Life Fiction, Literary Fiction
G.P. Putnam's Sons
January 30, 2024
Ebook, Audiobook, Paperback
336
A hilarious and empowering perimenopausal Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, about Clover Hendry, 46, and the day she decides to stop keeping the plates spinning, say F@#! it all, and finally get hers.
Today is not the day to mess with Clover Hendry.
Clover hasn’t said “No” a day in her life. Until today. Normally a woman who tips her hairdresser even when the cut is hideous, is endlessly patient with her horrendous mother, and says yes every time her boss asks her to work late—today, things are going to be very different. Because Clover is taking the day off. Today, she’s going to do and say whatever she likes, even if it means her whole life unravels.
What made Clover change her ways? Why doesn’t she care anymore? There’s more to this day than meets the eye.
Clover Hendry's Day Off is a joyful, raging, galvanizing story about putting life on pause, pleasing yourself, and getting your own back. Whatever it takes. Because when Clover stops caring, she can start living
“I am the rope, holding taut so that other people can cross. But it’s time to cut myself some slack.”
Clover Hendry’s Day Off by Beth Morrey is a feminine, middle-aged version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Instead of faking illness to get out of a day of high school, though, imagine the story begins with a perimenopausal woman who, suffering from a migraine and to-do list too long for even the most capable of us, pops two probably-expired Vicodin and some antihistamines just to get herself to work. This uncharacteristic choice sets her up for something she’s never done before — declaring “F@#! it!” and stepping out for a day completely for herself. Whatever she wants to do or say, Clover does and says with an attitude unleashed from years of pent-up people-pleasing and catastrophizing.
I felt seen by this book more than a few times.
As Clover progresses through her raging release of her day off, every other chapter includes flashbacks or reflections on life-changing phases: growing up with a narcissistic and cold mother, her father leaving them to move to Spain with another woman, meeting her husband and having a disastrous wedding day, the painful birth of her twins, finding her first job in the television industry by becoming a “ghost hunter”. These moments are tinged with enough exhaustion, regret, and indignation toward expectations for womanhood and motherhood that they made me squirm in my seat. I’ve thought some of these thoughts before, and I’ve chastised myself for them.
“I keep thinking back to moments when I let my natural cowardice get the better of me, allowing myself to be ignored, slighted, overlooked, rebuked. My innate fear of rocking the boat condemned me to a life spent tiptoeing around, polite smile plastered on, apologizing and throwing my cloak on the floor for everyone. Mostly my mother, admittedly, but it’s a habit that bled out and infected every part of my existence, until I’d effectively erased myself.”
Other aspects of Clover’s musings or the choices that she made throughout the book I couldn’t relate to at all. Clover’s day off is basically day one of her entering her villain era. I found myself wanting to argue with Clover a few times in this book or, in the very least, exclaim “What are you thinking?!” But then I would stop myself and say: isn’t that a marking of a good story? That you get so invested in a character or a plot that you find yourself reacting with conviction and emotion (even if it is a desire to start yelling at the pages)?
Morrey’s writing is funny as well. Clover has a sharp wit and a sarcasm not to be matched. Plus, some of the events of the day are just so ridiculous — like Clover plowing a riding lawn mower through a group of yoga practitioners in the park because they bullied her out of her picnic spot — that I couldn’t help but laugh. Okay, Clover. You’re acting crazy but you’re pretty cool.
I think there’s something to be learned from reading Clover Hendry’s Day Off, especially if you can relate to hitting your own breaking point. My advice to the reader is to just set the expectation now that it’s all going to feel more than a little bit “unhinged”. But keep holding on for the end of her day off and day one of her new life. It’s beautiful in so many ways.
“It’s not easy making a fuss. Standing up for yourself can be awkward and embarrassing. Causing a scene is mortifying. Saying no is hard.
But I think, finally, I might be getting the hang of it.”
Celeste is a woman who is unwavering about certain things in life; three of those being books, cats, and cold brew coffee. If she can enjoy all three at the same time, it’s going to be a good day. Her favorite genres are fantasy or sci-fi romance, historical romance, and historical fiction but every few books she likes to mix it up with contemporary fiction, a good psychological thriller, or an inspiring memoir. She has a busy schedule working full-time for an online university but she makes sure to unwind each day with stories, either by reading to her elementary school-aged daughter or tucking herself in bed with her Kindle or the latest book she picked up at a local book store.
