There's No Coming Back from This by Ann Garvin

There's No Coming Back from This Reviews

• 
  Courtney

  2.5 stars. Got this as my Amazon First Reads choice for July and really glad I didn’t purchase it. This was just okay at best. The main character, Poppy, was whiny, unsure, and very insecure (not to mention immature for a 50 year old). Her old flame was obnoxious and so over the top fake, it was annoying she couldn’t see it (and also, Three as a name??? 🤦🏻‍♀️ Gah.)
  
  Slow moving and should have been an interesting plot but I found myself rushing through the last half just to finish. Almost DNF’d multiple times.
• 
  Vibliophile

  A bit of a slow start but a savory finish
  
  So don't go into this expecting lol comedy - it's more women's fiction with a wry tone. Poppy's got a lot going on & a whole lot of baggage to offload. Her path of self discovery & healing is definitely different!
  
  I have to admit, initially, it was a little hard to get into. Her life seemed like such a trainwreck with no caboose in sight. Her job perspective was interesting though. As things start to develop in the story, it increasingly drew me in, and the little unexpected twist at the end leading to the happy ending was very enjoyable. Definitely pleased with this Prime pick!
  
  *** CONTENT ***
  This is a PG-13 story. Definitely adult, but no graphic sex, some minor drug & alcohol intoxication scenes, some language but no f-bombs or abuse of God's Name. And while there's some minor PC stuff, it's low key & apolitical at least.
  
• 
  Sue

  Ann Garvin has brought her readers a new book about a woman working hard to get her life back to normal. It's a great story with an older female main character, a bunch of great supporting characters and brings smiles to your face as you cheer on the main character as she faces all kinds of adversity to get her life back on track.
  
  Poppy Lively is in trouble. Her business is failing and her accountant has run off with all of her savings. The IRS is calling her constantly and since she has no money to pay her taxes, she's in danger of losing her house. Her only child is in New York city working as a nanny until she starts nursing school in the fall. One of Poppy's main worries is that she won't have money to pay for her daughter's college so she keeps her current financial fiasco a secret from her daughter. The only person who knows about it is her best friend Chelsea who is always full of advice. When she takes her daughter to the airport for her flight to NYC, she runs into an old boyfriend. She hasn't seen him in years and he's now a hot-shot producer in Hollywood. She lets him know that she's job hunting and he offers her a job in costumes on his current movie being filmed. She knows very little about movies and has no idea what the job entails but really how hard can it be? Plus the salary is really good and will help her get out of debt before her daughter comes home. She finds out as soon as she starts the job that there's a lot to learn and few people willing to help her. Most of the workers in this area pretty much ignored Poppy when they weren't making fun of her. When she stumbles on some corruption, no one pays much attention to her so she's able to investigate more deeply. She has to decide whether to take her findings to the moviemakers or keep her mouth shut and expose the corruption and lose her job. Is she willing to take the risk??
  
  I absolutely loved Poppy. She was a good honest person who was in over her head but instead of giving up, she fought for her place and kept her eye on the goal of getting out of debt. She had very little in common with the California people who worked on the movie lot. They often made fun of her Midwestern accent and her way of doing things but instead of changing to make them happy, she kept working as hard as she could in her own way. She handled things with humor and common sense a rarity among the movie people and she is a character that I won't soon forget.
• 
  Natasha Niezgoda

  Well, this was a quaint and charming little surprise! I’d classify this as a “second” coming of age story. Poppy, the FMC, is a fifty-year-old woman and mother to Robyn. Life hasn’t been too kind to Poppy as of late and she’s found herself taking an impromptu job in California, leading to a lot of personal revelations.
  
  
  
  I honestly really enjoyed how tempered this book was. The plot wasn’t revolutionary, but it was poignant. Poppy is extremely likable. Kevin is my favorite character. Emily grows on you. And Allen is heart eyes! OH… And the ending was really “swell”.
  
  This is a perfect “feel good” book!
  
  3.75 stars 👏🏽
• 
  Mary

  I don't know how it's possible that I have only just now read a book by
  Ann Garvin, but I'm not mad that it was
  There's No Coming Back from This. I also don't know what I was expecting, but this was the perfect mashup of mysteriousness, women's fiction, romance, humor, and general adorableness. The small dog Kevin really stole the show for me, but I couldn't help but love Poppy as well. She is a Midwesterner through and through and being from Minnesota myself, I was thoroughly delighted by the fact that Garvin had her be from Wisconsin. This entire book was a true delight from the storyline all the way down to the characters, and Poppy really grew as a person between the beginning and end.
  
  The audio for this was also incredible, and Andi Arndt was able to perfectly nail the Midwestern Wisconsin accent that Poppy piles on in one scene. I honestly think listening to this made me love it even more, and it is a Kindle Unlimited title, so I highly recommend checking out the audio if you have it! There's No Coming Back from This was the perfect read for escaping real life which made it incredibly easy for me to knock it out in basically one day. It was interesting to me that the author chose to use the name "Three" for one of the characters, and now I am desperately curious as to why she did this. I may have only just finished, but I'm already looking forward to my future reread which I will most definitely be doing.
  
  I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
• 
  Chris Salvatore

  I’ll never get those four hours back
  
  Did anyone edit this book? Or is it because I’m elderly and don’t understand what people under age 35 are saying? Are commas completely gone, just quaint reminder of the old days?
  
  This story could have been much shorter. The repetition of phrases throughout the book, mostly not needed, was a distraction from the story. Dickensian pay agreement?
  
  The contradictions (and I am not referring to the “mystery”), had me going back pages to see If I’d misread. Another distraction.
  
  I wrote, “Do your homework!” quite a few times in my notes. (Lions have cubs, not pups.) For most of the errors, you wouldn’t even have to go to the library!
  
  I see the author is getting lots of praise, but for me, she’s a one and done.
• 
  DJ Sakata

  Favorite Quotes:
  
  I dodged a drug-sniffing dog who lifted his head as I slid by. For all I knew, my nervous energy could be detected, and I’d be labeled as a threat to national security. If I was detained and strip-searched, my ungroomed body hair alone would trigger alarms. No one would be the same after that— and that was the last thing in the world I wanted.
  
  Muriel wore a pair of light jeans and a T-shirt. I gauged her to be somewhere between forty and sixty, that ubiquitous age for a woman that teens considered ancient and homogenous.
  
  If you were sleeping when a tornado hit your house, the people on Twitter would blame you for living in a place where tornados can hit your house. If your accountant stole your money, everyone in your book club would agree that you should have been paying better attention. The blame ball, in the game of life, rolled downhill and, as often as not, hit the victim.
  
  I’m such a third-rate criminal. I’m like one of those people you see on YouTube who rip off a convenience store with a green water pistol because they’re color blind.
  
  It was the oddest sensation, and not a good one, to be suddenly seen. It wasn’t as if people stopped and stared as they might have if, say, Julia Roberts strode between sets, with her stunning choppers and glorious nostrils.
  
  I tried pot once in college and became frantically suspicious that the blue Ford Taurus in my apartment parking lot was an unmarked cop car. I had binoculars from a bird-watching elective and peered at the empty vehicle until my roommate came home and took them from me. After much hydration and time, my paranoia subsided, but I vowed to stay away from the devil’s lettuce forever.
  
  
  
  My Review:
  
  I smirked with delight while reading and may have giggle-snorted into my wine glass more than a few times as Ann Garvin’s clever writing quickly transported me into Poppy’s rueful and frenetic vortex with sharp visuals and vibrant descriptions full of humorous observations and witty inner musings. Ms. Garvin’s character development was flawless and her enticing and insightful storytelling kept me reading late into the night. Even her chapter titles were comical and brilliant.
  
  I adored Poppy but I also wanted to give her a few nudges to the seat of her pants from my trusty crocs. Poppy was an authentic and unique character who was well-meaning, well-fleshed out, and completely knowable. She resided in my mind's eye as a recognizable living entity. Poppy’s struggles were real and not of her own doing. She was increasingly endeared to me as she labored at a new position with a do-or-die attitude, frantic pace, and a steep learning curve as best she could with limited resources while walking a keen edge of discovery and humorously teetered on catastrophe. Yet she had a good heart and was up for a loosely planned caper to help right a wrong at her own peril. I was also totally enamored with Alan, with her assigned movie star.
  
  This was my first exposure to the comedic genius of Ann Garvin and I plan to haunt her listings with regularity. Her word voodoo is strong and beckons me to add her clever scribblings to my Kindle.
• 
  Carissa Victoria

  eh
  
  When I read the love interest was named “Three” I thought, I should just put this book down now. But I didn’t and i should of listened
• 
  Dottie Corley

  What a surprise
  
  I chose this book because the cover looked fun (I know, I know...) but I wasn't expecting it to be so good. Great story, fun characters, good life lessons. And no sex, violence, or bad language! (Well, maybe a few mild swear words. Nothing that would offend your mother.)
• 
  Richard Propes

  "There's No Coming Back From This" is the kind of novel that makes you want to read more from USA Today Bestselling author Ann Garvin.
  
  As a newcomer to the Garvin world, I'll admit that I wasn't sure what to expect. I was instantly enchanted by this relatable novel about a 50ish woman named Poppy whose life had been relatively stable as she prepared for the initial stages of "empty nest" syndrome with her daughter, Robyn, heading off to nursing school in the fall.
  
  However, Poppy's seemingly reliable accountant absconded with her life savings leaving her bankrupt, on the verge of losing her very nest, and facing the prospect that all of this will dramatically impact her daughter's future plans.
  
  A chance encounter with an old flame leads to an opportunity in the wardrobe department for a Hollywood motion picture, an opportunity that provides the narrative structure for this entertaining and emotionally honest story that tackles real-life themes with an abundance of heart and humor.
  
  While it's likely fair, or at least understandable, to consider "There's No Coming Back From This" as women's fiction, a lot of what's going on here is universally relatable and this 50ish widowed male with a disability found the entire novel engaging, immersive, and a whole lot of fun.
  
  A Midwestern nurse and educator on her way to becoming a successful author, Garvin infuses "There's No Coming Back From This" with characters you can't help but love amidst all their quirks, foibles, defense mechanisms, and so much more.
  
  Poppy herself is a delight, a frighteningly typical Midwestern gem with a refreshing candor, a tendency toward self-sabotaging humility, and a complete lack of desire to play the Hollywood diva game.
  
  She's surrounded by a kaleidoscope of Hollywood types from a "must hire" named Emilie to a seemingly hard-as-nails supervisor named Muriel to the ill-tempered star Allen and, finally, a dog named Kevin.
  
  I promise. You'll love them all.
  
  It's not often that I reach the end of a new book and feel like I've read a new author whose works I now have to check out. However, this is very much the case with Ann Garvin's "There's No Coming Back From This." An enjoyable read from beginning to end, "There's No Coming Back From This" may be my first Garvin novel but it won't be my last.
• 
  Erin McCurry

  I just don’t think it was for me. It was a struggle to get through but I thought maybe the end would be worth it.
• 
  Joanne

  This book could be given as a the cautionary example of not following the advice of "show, don't tell." It's convenient that the protagonist leaves her home and her best friend, that her daughter is far away, her love interest unavailable. We see almost no interaction between Poppy and anybody else. The story is mostly Poppy telling us what her relationships are.
  
  We know she's an outsider, not because of what happens to her, but because she tells us she is. We know her boss doesn't like her, because she tells us so. We know she grows as a character, because she tells us she did.
  
  There's almost no space for the reader to form any opinions because we're already told what they should be. It kept me feeling very distanced and not able to engage with the story as I would have liked.
• 
  Jen

  This took me a little time to get into but once I did, I thought it was a cute story with an endearing (but bumbling) protagonist. The book centers on Poppy, who is experiencing money problems not of her own making when she runs into and old flame that offers her a job on a movie set. Poppy is totally out of her element but works hard as she tries to fit in.
  
  Poppy did take a while to grow on me because she was so damned insecure. There is strong character development throughout the book though. The story itself is somewhat cheesy but also really funny; it left me with good feelings at the end. I was fascinated by the glimpse behind the curtain of working behind the scenes on a movie set.
  
  Overall, this is outside my normal genre but it was a cute story and I’m glad I read it. Thanks to Amazon for giving me this book as part of their First Reads program.
• 
  Maria Balsamo

  So funny and so real! This book is for every woman who was raised to believe she must cater to everyone else’s wishes and never have any of her own. So, basically every female over 40…. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration.
  
  Poppy’s dilemma and her journey feels very real. Reading her triumph validates the message that valuing oneself is key to successful personhood.
• 
  Michelle Bruehler

  Started out good but never really got into it after the middle. Had to force myself to finish
• 
  Cherie

  3.5⭐️ a bit slow in the middle but a great start and finish to the book. This is a story of Poppy who was doing great until her accountant stole everything from her.
  
  She is offered a job in a movie set which will help keep her out of jail and help her daughter with college. Until she discovers some secrets on set.
• 
  Dana

  An enjoyable read from beginning to end.
  
  What an absolutely fantastic cast of characters and entertaining storyline!
  
  The amount of personal growth in Poppy from beginning to end is remarkable. I was cheering her on throughout the story, and by the end I was standing and punching the air! I love a quirky, fun loving character. Extra points if they have goofy humour!
  
  This would make the perfect beach or book club read.
  
  My thanks to Over The River PR for this gifted copy.
  
• 
  Meagan (Meagansbookclub)

  3.5 ⭐️
  
  I liked the idea of this book and the overall story of Poppy and her come back story. However, the development felt a bit scattered and at times hard to follow. Honestly, the story of Poppy and Three didn’t really need to be there. It was lurking in the background the whole time and the author needed to develop it more or eliminate it completely. There were aspects to the story that I really liked and had fun reading (chemistry between Allen and Poppy was so fun!) and seeing Poppy become more confident was great.
• 
  Kristen

  A struggle to get through, there wasn’t enough depth to the story. I did enjoy the setting of a movie studio, did not enjoy the random flashbacks to compare practically every scenario she was in. Also, “Three” was the stupidest name for a main character.
• 
  Jen W

  3.5 ⭐️. I loved Poppy’s character and her friendship with Travis and Allen made this book. Quick vacation read would recommend to others.
• 
  Leslie

  Poppy Lively is a mess. She’s a 50 year old single mom who lives in Wisconsin with a child who is off to college soon. Her mother left when she was a child and her father died, leaving her his coupon business. Her accountant ran off with her money and never paid her taxes. The IRS is after her and she needs to sell her house and find a lucrative job STAT. After dropping her daughter off at the airport for a summer spent as a nanny in NYC, Poppy runs into Three, an old flame. Over drinks she tells him her financial woes and he offers her a job in Hollywood that might just help her find her way out of all this.
  
  This was a really cute book. I somehow managed to read two books set in Hollywood back to back, both very different from the other. This was a Read Now on NetGalley, which I needed for summer bingo. I may have never read it otherwise. As they say, books find you.
  
  Poppy is a mess and I loved her. As a mom with a child leaving for college in two weeks, I could really relate to her desperation over how she was going to afford making her child’s dream come true. I could feel the stress she was under as she did the math and ran the numbers. Although my life is nothing like Poppy’s, I got it.
  
  The Hollywood setting was fun and the characters were all really interesting, including Kevin the dog. The high stakes movie set made for an even more stressful atmosphere. I enjoyed seeing Poppy flourish there despite her desperate plight and her lack of direct skills.
  
  This was a 5 star read for the first 3/4 of the book. I really had a good time with it and looked forward to picking it up again after I put it down. The last quarter of the book got a little too silly for me, hence the four stars.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC.
• 
  CammieOH

  Got this as my Amazon First Reads. Got to pick 2 bc it was Prime Day and there really were no good thrillers so I chose this by default. I had just finished a wild psychological thriller that still had a grip on my heart, so I thought, okay, change of pace, read this. I’m glad I did!
  
  Poppy has big money troubles and jumps at the chance to make really good money in the wardrobe department on set in LA. So she drives her old beater from Wisconsin to California. It’s hilarious as she tries to tone down her accent but the “you betcha’s” and silly puns just slip out. ( I can so totally relate being from Duluth Minnesota transplanted to Southern Ohio where my long O’s brought attention amidst the soft twang and long drawls. And why does everything have a new name? Why is a vacuum a sweeper?) anyway:
  
  Poppy is determined to do the best job ever to keep her there earning money to get her life back on track but every day the threat of being “erased” from the call sheet looms over her head. Plus, she has nowhere to live! She thought the job came with accommodation but, no, so she lurks around after everyone leaves each night finding solace in the Honey Wagon,aka toilet trailer.
  
  There also something weird going on like why does everyone hate her? Is it her connection to Three, her long lost lover that got her this job?
  
  I got lost in the atmosphere of the Hollywood set and the supporting characters, some friends, some foe but are the friends actually foes? This is funny and kind of mad cap and Oh! There’s a dog named Kevin that Poppy (and I) fell in love with. The author can write that’s for sure and I immediately downloaded another book from her.
• 
  Meagan

  I liked the premise of this book but it lacked flow, and probably editing. Our main character Poppy, while likable, was a little all over the place. I couldn’t figure out who or how her character was supposed to be. Word that comes to mind is choppy. But like I mentioned, good storyline that had potential- ok for a freebie.
• 
  Lauren Steiner

  I wanted to like this book but ultimately I didn’t. The characters and the plot are underdeveloped. I contemplated giving up on this book several times within the first 100 pages and I wish I had. Overall very meh and would not recommend.
• 
  Mercy Koehler

  Poppy Lively is who I think I’ll be in 30 years and i’m ok with that
• 
  Linda Zagon

  Ann Garvin, the Author of “There’s No Coming Back From This,” has written a heartwarming, captivating, witty, and delightful novel. The genres for this novel are Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Chick-Lit, Romance and Fiction.
  
  I love the wit, empathy, and compassion the author uses in her well-written story. Ann Garvin vividly describes the scenery, props, plot, and colorful and dramatic characters. The author describes her characters as complex, complicated, flawed, quirky, and likable. Even the adorable dog in this story has a unique personality. Some characters exhibit toxic behavior. You’ll have to read to form your conclusions.
  
  I love the name that Ann Garvin has given to the protagonist, Poppy Lively. Poppy hasn’t had the best of luck. She is unemployed and about to lose her house after her accountant took her money; now, the IRS is after Poppy. Poppy has to keep this information a secret from her daughter, who is about to start Nursing School.
  
  After running into an old boyfriend, Poppy gets a job offer to work in the Wardrobe in Hollywood. She will have to deal with temperamental actors and all matters of design. Does it matter that Poppy has no experience, and everyone dislikes her because they think she got this job from her special connection? Anything and everything can go wrong in this department. There are betrayals and strange happenings.
  
  I appreciate how Ann Garvin discusses the importance of self-worth, self-growth, forgiveness, and second chances. The author also mentions the importance of honesty, communication, friendship, family, love, and hope. I highly recommend this thought-provoking novel. Happy Reading!