Book Review: Linger
Linger. Meg Marcus, self-published, August 2024, paperback and e-book, 329 pages.
Reviewed by Kelly Fumiko Weiss
Linger is a novel centering around Mallory, a woman determined to reunite her group of long-lost friends. The six women grew up together as part of the “Adventure Girls,” a fictional Girl Scout-like organization that kept them in each other's lives throughout childhood and high school. However, after high school, most went their separate ways. After 12 years of not connecting, Mallory decides to bring them back together for an Adventure Girl-sponsored trip to California.
Author Meg Marcus does a lovely job of pulling the readers into the world of these women, particularly into Mallory’s headspace. The anxiety that Mallory faces at the smallest of things – sending a Facebook message, getting to the airport, saying the right things – is utterly relatable. As the women come together and you begin to learn about each of them, Marcus also does a great job of giving each a distinct personality.
That’s hard to do with a group of otherwise similar women. (The reader’s assumption is that they are all 30-something white women.) Marcus skillfully gives them each a tone of voice and an attitude that stays consistent throughout the book.
While this review will not reveal the underlying reason why Mallory truly reunited this group of women (we do NOT want to spoil that for anyone), when the reader finds out, it is emotional, touching, and ultimately cathartic. The end of the book has an element of wish fulfillment as well as grounded realism that mirrors life itself – you never know what’s around that next corner or how long friends will have time left together. But perhaps most impressive is that all their grievances feel real and earned. The reasons why they are upset with each other – and why they ultimately forgive each other over the course of the trip – ring true.
Marcus does a great job of designing the vacation for the women as well. The tour guide was a perfect addition to the crew, and the activities and events they embarked upon across northern and southern California were well thought out and easy to visualize. It was fun to be on the trip with this crew, even with the baggage and drama that comes with very old friends.
I highly recommend this book for readers who love stories of friendship, healing, laughter, and chosen family. I also recommend that Marcus continue to expand this universe. While she dips into the heads of the other characters, this was really Mallory’s book and the other five deserve their time in the spotlight. I’d love to find out what happens next for Katie and her potential relationship, for CeCe when she goes back home, and for Christie as she adjusts to life without her best friend. There’s a lot of room for this to be a book universe and I for one would love to keep reading.
