The Unabridged Life of Missy Kinkaid by Kirsten Pursell

Reviewed by Addison Ciuchta

A sweet, emotional tale about a woman finding her identity and love in middle age

When The Unabridged Life of Missy Kinkaid begins, Missy is seeing the faces of all of her exes on cereal boxes at the grocery store. Her mother recently passed, her children have gone off to college, she’s recently divorced, and she’s living in her childhood home, leading to a bit of an identity crisis for the fiery redhead who’s usually the life of the party. Her spark, she realizes, is gone.

With her friends Scarlet, Amber, and her cousin Margo at her side, fellow members of the Sullivan’s Island Divorced Woman’s Book Club, Missy struggles to find her fire again while the voice of her mother lingers in the back of her head. With a complicated relationship with Margo, whom she grew up with and who tends to follow in Missy’s shadow, and a newly burgeoning relationship with her father’s estate lawyer, Zander, Missy reflects on her life, her role, and her identity now that her role as mother has taken a back seat.

Missy is a spitfire, her red hair a defining characteristic for her outward strength and quick tongue. But inside, she’s struggling, dealing with the loss of both of her parents, reckoning with who she is now that her children are old enough to take care of themselves, and fresh out of her first fairly serious post-divorce relationship. She’s been left with a broken heart and a damaged sense of confidence. She has lost her spark, something that she’s working hard to get back. Her internal conflict regarding her role in the world now that her children are less reliant on her is something many will relate to.

Years ago, Missy gave up her career to raise her children, so now that they don’t need her in the same way they did as children, she’s left living in a big, empty house that she doesn’t know what to do with. As Missy says it, she’s “gone missing” from herself under the pressure of an attentionless marriage and kids who have grown up. Her fight to get back her spark adds real emotional depth to this natural book club pick.

The dynamic between Missy and her cousin Margo also adds a level of complexity to the narrative. After growing up together as best friends, they fell into a relationship in which Margo lived in Missy’s shadow. Now, fifty years later, they resent and cling to each other, both of them bringing familial baggage and current identity crises into the mix.

After a secret comes out during a meeting between Scarlet’s Harlots, which is what they call their friend group, their relationship threatens to fracture. Part of Missy’s reflection on her life includes Margo, their stories deeply intertwined, and she works through whether she wants to mend it now that they’re very different people than they were as girls. Margo is both jealous and resentful of Missy’s tendency to be in the forefront of everything, following in her shadow and even doing something that could hurt her. But Missy feels pity for her cousin, who had a rough childhood, and she supports her despite growing frustrated with how she can’t seem to do anything on her own. The portrayal of resentment but also reliance on a relationship dynamic like that is very realistic. I don’t see enough of it in fiction, and I’m glad it’s here.

For those in the mood for romance, this book features a very sweet romance between Missy and her father’s estate lawyer, Zander. He shows up at her house one day to deliver a posthumous letter from her mother, and they are both immediately intrigued by the other. It’s instant attraction, but certainly not instant love. Both Missy and Zander have relationship baggage that make them approach this new connection carefully. Through her relationship with Zander, her friendships, and her beginning to write, Missy fights to get her spark back, though it’s not an easy journey.

The touch of surreal elements, like Missy seeing faces on the cereal boxes or mentions of her mother flipping lights on or observing Missy, do add an element of emotionality to the narrative, but they aren’t on the page enough to be fully effective. With how infrequent they arrive, they can feel out of place or jarring when the point of view cuts to Missy’s deceased mother’s perspective or when it expands out of Missy’s head to show details that she herself misses.

The Unabridged Life of Missy Kinkaid is a touching, emotional journey of one woman fighting to reignite her internal spark. It’s sweet, especially with Missy’s friendships and with her new romance with Zander, but it’s also emotionally resonant in the ways it explores grief, identity, and loss in middle age.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of The Unabridged Life of Missy Kinkaid by Kirsten Pursell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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