Life, Unscheduled

By: Kristin Rockaway

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani

A smart, modern novel about a woman trying to balance her career, her best friend, and falling in love without crashing and burning.

Nicole Palmieri is married to her job. As a user experience designer at Virtuality, an artificial intelligence company in Los Angeles, Nicole is at her desk from sunrise to sunset. She doesn’t have time for a social life (or a love life), but that’s perfectly fine with her. Until her best friend, Parisa Shahin, announces her engagement and asks Nicole to be her maid of honor.

That’s when Nicole decides to meticulously schedule out the next six months of her life—from her project due dates to her dress-fitting appointments to how many hours she plans to sleep each night. If she can stick to her schedule, she’ll balance everything fine. Of course, that’s a really big if. And after she crosses paths with emerging restaurateur Brandon Phelps, Nicole is feeling feelings she hasn’t felt in...well, ever. But scheduling time to fall in love might push even the most meticulous plans into pure chaos.

©2021 by Allison Amini. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Narrator Soneela Nankani captures the tension felt by workaholic web designer Nicole Palmieri as she overschedules her way through a huge work project and maid-of-honor duties for her best friend, Parisa. Nankani's tone is plaintive as Nicole struggles to find a way to simultaneously please her demanding bosses and Parisa's equally demanding family.… Listeners will anticipate the train wreck that lies ahead but will thoroughly sympathize with Nicole's time management issues, thanks to Nankani's delivery.” —AudioFile Magazine

“Rockaway’s newest standalone offers an honest and open look at the mental health and relationship struggles of a modern career woman. Nicole’s struggles are real and relatable, while her happy ending is hard-earned and sweet.” —Library Journal

Life, Unrealistic and Ridiculous

I stopped three chapters in and this was after I skipped portions of those chapters. Who would put up with this type of life, especially a 27yo? It was too unrealistic and silly for me to continue.

loved it

I really enjoyed reading this author.  I look forward to reading more books by this author in the near future.

2 hours is not another country

Good enough story line, and narrator did excellent job. Main female character does indeed have some issues. I feel like the author should have made Brandon's happy place across the country, since it's only 2 hours away but is portrayed as though "oh my god, 2 whole hours. Gasp. We can't see each other for months on end, it's so far." Seriously? Criminey, in my neck of the woods people commute an hour and a half to work and back (each way) every single day.

Entertaining Enough

The story was fine. Most of the characters weren’t terribly likable, though. Also, the reader’s interpretation of the main character bothered me. She sounded incredulous or overly dramatic most of the time. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, but it was a bit off-putting for me.

entertaining for techies

I really enjoyed this book. I'm a software engineer and it's rare to find books that have characters as software engineers, developers etc. and an entertaining story with it.