Like the protagonist of her second novel, Jessica Stanley is an Australian writer living in London. They share other similarities too, such as favourite authors, and perhaps the moments that Stanley has drawn from her own experience in order to shape Coralie’s are what makes her story feel so real.
Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous time in British (and indeed world) politics, Consider Yourself Kissed is a deeply relatable, heartwarming, but also stress-filled novel about a woman trying to have it all while simultaneously being what everyone else expects.
Less ‘sad girl lit’ and more ‘woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown lit’, this novel feels like the mature successor to novels like those from Dolly Alderton and Sally Rooney, asking what happens to those well-read young women who set out to achieve all of their dreams when those dreams include motherhood.
While second novels are often approached with some trepidation, Consider Yourself Kissed seems well-placed to make more of a splash than Stanley’s 2022 debut, A Great Hope. The story of Coralie Bower begins on the cusp of her thirtieth year, when she finds herself saving the young daughter of a stranger in a London park. That stranger is Adam, a political biographer and podcaster; the pair soon fall in love and begin making a life together.
This life involves a cast of lovable and memorable characters such as Zora, Adam’s precocious but adorable daughter; his ex Marina and her new husband ‘Tory Tom’; and the GG’s – Gay Grannies- Anne and Sally, who are Adam’s mother and her partner. (Anne, retired a doctor who is now obsessed with exercise, health and fitness, makes acerbic comments throughout the book that sometimes had me cackling.)
Coralie, who was originally in the UK as part of a corporate effort to hush up the inappropriate behaviour of her former boss, has dreams of being a writer. But, increasingly she has to put those dreams on hold to play step-mother and sort-of-but-not-really wife as Adam’s career is bolstered by chaos at 10 Downing Street. It’s not all doom and gloom however, and Stanley writes Coralie’s life with great skill, showing us not only why she is fed up, but why she stays, and why she loves her growing family (and found family) circle despite it all.
The book is described as a literary love story, and there is certainly a lot of literary love within the pages. At one point, I was writing down references to specific books, though I’m sure there will be many that I missed as I was absorbed by the plot. The title of the book itself comes from Mary McCarthy’s The Group, and refers to the tendency of characters to sign off their letters with the phrase ‘consider yourself kissed.’ Coralie and Adam adopt this habit in their texts, but as it becomes more reflex than sentiment, the phrase loses meaning over time. Excluding the political biographies that Adam references, Coralie’s book collection includes:
- The Group by Mary McCarthy
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard
- The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
- Maurice by EM Forster
- A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- Outline by Rachel Cusk
As well as these, there are also many references to women writers Coralie admires such as Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Iris Murdoch, AS Byatt, Ali Smith, Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, Nancy Mitford and Helen Garner – and a bunch of ‘those green-spine books by women’, also known as the Virago Modern Classics. A memorable moment that made me laugh out loud was when Adam, on inspecting Coralie’s book collection dared to ask who Helen Garner was. A question that perhaps will only provide an indignant jolt to Australian readers, but I certainly hope not.
This is a book for book lovers, but also a book that I suspect many women will find extremely validating. Stanley never sets Adam up as the villain of the piece, but she adeptly shows his lack of consideration, and his lack of understanding of the daily expectations his partner shoulders the weight of – also known as the emotional labour. While having a partner in the home sets Adam’s career up to flourish, for Coralie, it means that her career – both her paid one for a brand agency and her aspirational one, as a writer- flounders.
Early on in the book, Coralie remembers a writer she admired giving advice on a podcast: ‘If you can write, you can work.’ But Consider Yourself Kissed explores through story the kinds of obstacles that life puts in the way of achieving this, particularly for women writers; not only the competing claims on a person’s time, but also the disruptions to mental clarity that come from places beyond our control, like Brexit or a pandemic. That anyone manages to write a book at all, let alone one as engaging and thought-provoking as this one, is frankly a miracle.
If you like smart, considered but still plot-driven stories about people who feel extremely real, then this one is for you. I’d compare it to Daisy Buchanan, Toni Jordan and Curtis Sittenfeld (or some combination of the three); but it’s also completely unlike anything I’ve ever read. Perhaps it is Coralie’s (and Jessica Stanley’s) unique perspective as an Australian in London which gives her the keen eyes of an observer, but whatever it is, it works.
This book is a triumph.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Jessica Stanley’s Consider Yourself Kissed is out now through Text Publishing. Grab yourself a copy from your local bookstore HERE.
