All Fours

What might have been a straightforward story of middle-aged self-discovery takes some unexpected turns–most literally when the narrator exits the highway twenty minutes into a planned cross-country drive and subsequently camps out in a Monrovia motel room for two weeks, lying to her family while exploring an attraction to a local car rental employee. July is typically frank and funny throughout, though the back half of the book is a slightly more conventional story of a 40-something blowing up her life and finding herself in the process.