I loved the premise of this book, but I wasn’t satisfied with the execution.
Morning pages is a technique popularized by Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way, where she encourages writers to write unstructured every morning as part of a process that helps them to get out of their own way.

Playwright Elise Hellman is commissioned by The Players Playhouse to write a play for the 25th anniversary of the theatre; Elise is one of five playwrights, whose first plays were huge hits at the theatre when it first opened, to be selected for this honour. The earning of $50,000 for an original play is a huge motivation. But when Elise gets down to writing, she finds out that she can no longer write. She simply doesn’t feel inspired enough. There’s far too much going on in her life for her to be able to write the way she did.
Before long, her real life starts influencing the play she’s writing, until both are chaotic mirror images of each other.
Elise finds herself struggling. She cannot focus on her writing, particularly when her son, Marsden, won’t communicate with her, and her mother has dementia.

The writing is intentionally journal-like, stemming as it does from the morning pages. Each chapter of the book is a day of the Morning Pages. Interspersed with the journal entries are small snatches of the play that Elise is writing.
The letter from the theatre is dated January 5, 2013, and Elise is told that they need her finished play by December 1 that year. That’s a few days short of eleven months. And yet, on Day 1 of her Morning Pages, Elise informs us that she has 65 days to complete her play. She doesn’t tell us how she ended up losing so much time. Why did she start writing so late in the year?
We get to know of her problems in real time. We get drama with her mother, her aunt Rosemary, her cousin, Julie, her ex-husband Elliot and his girlfriend, Midge, and her son, who seems to have no motivation regarding his future.
With nothing but her morning pages to guide her, Elise’s play soon begins to run parallel with her own life. With fiction imitating real life, it becomes tricky for us to keep the characters straight. Because there are the ‘real’ characters and their close counterparts from the world of the play. And every character in the play is influenced by someone in Elise’s own sphere. For instance, her main character, Laurie, also has divorced parents, just like Elise.
With her dead love life, ex-husband and his girlfriend, and Elise’s father and his current wife, Nicolette, besides her mother and son adding their own antics into the mix, there’s drama aplenty in Elise’s life but no signs of the play writing itself out. So much for the morning pages.
One thing I must say. Her morning pages were more entertaining than the play which was literally based on her own life.

The play was dull for the most part. In one page of writing from the play, we read of Laurie staunchly defending her father in an argument with her mother. She says, of her father, he fell in love with someone else. And there’s not the slightest hint of irony when she says that. Does Laurie have no sense of loyalty towards her mother? How could Elise write such a line, considering that she is still cut up about Elliot falling in love with Midge?
We are told that Elliot made his fortune with a unique business model that he founded, one that matches consumers with an appliance based on their personality type. This was inane. It sounded like one of those dumb quizzes that aim to solve for you the burning question of How much of a Gryffindor are you? Or what breed of dog would you have been had you been a dog? I cannot imagine making money out of this business model.
Despite the basic plot hinging upon the writing process, there wasn’t much in the plot about Elise’s writing process or about dementia, which her mother has.
There were some parts I liked, many I didn’t, and large parts that felt disconnected. Marsden’s sudden change of heart and behaviour were unconvincing. The story, as a journal, felt removed from the reader.
Also, I tried but I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. They were all unremarkable.

Thoroughly enjoyed this quirky novel with a cast of great characters, most notably Elise's mother who is an absolute scream.
I enjoyed the format of the journalling (morning pages) interspersed with passages from Elise's working play 'Deja New'. Feiffer tackles the notion of writer's block with humour and self-deprecation, but actually gets to the heart of some of her issues as well.
There's a great balance of humour and heart in the novel and, while it all ties up a little too conveniently (I think a little more time could have gone to her friend's challenges as well), it's immensely readable and, at least for me, gave me quite a few smiles and laugh-out-loud moments.
I would highly recommend.

My thanks to Regalo Press for the eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I like books with unique formats so I was interested in this. I had heard of morning pages before from the Artist’s Way but this was definitely my first time seeing it used in a book.

This book was back and forth for me. I really enjoyed sections of it but others were rambly and could be confusing. I had a hard time connecting with Elise honestly. Then again, I’m not as interested in theatre so that could have added to the disconnect, though I love a good story about creative and artsy characters. Other people will enjoy this more than me. There were some funny parts! I enjoyed the play within the story.

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this.

This was a great book. I connected with the characters. I felt engrossed with the plot. I would read another book by this author.

I tore through Morning Pages, the debut adult novel by children’s author and illustrator Kate Feiffer. Only halfway through, I knew this will be a 5 star read for me. I mean, I knew I was going to love it when, at only 6% in, I read the line, “How did I become a celibate middle-aged woman with writers block who is about to pee herself?” 😂

This book is absolutely hilarious and I loved getting a front-row seat to the main character’s inner musings. This epistolary novel is comprised of Elise’s (our MC, a divorced playwright and mother to an 18 year old son) Morning Pages as she spend two months trying to finish a commissioned play. If you aren’t familiar with the act, writing Morning Pages is an exercise introduced by Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way) where you free write, by hand, three pages of whatever flows through you first thing in the morning every day. For Elise, that’s snippets of dialogue for her play, complaints about her family and friends, musings on writers block and the artistic life, and more. It’s fabulous.

Perfect read for fans of Dear Edna Sloane by Amy Shearn, and anyone who’s ever experienced a creative block or navigated mid life and complicated family relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley and Regalo Press for the eARC. I’ll definitely be buying a physical copy too!

I tried with this one - I really did.

Elise Hellman, playwright, was once hailed as 'the next best thing' .. and since then, not a lot has happened. However, with an unexpected - and generous - commission, she begins writing down her thoughts each morning, like a kind of diary, knows as Morning Pages, to get her back into the groove. With only sixty five days to go, she needs to get the job done.

Try as I might, I just couldn't get into this one, which is really unusual for me. Having read that it was 'clever and witty' I expected to enjoy but it just didn't happen. So, I took a break, read something else and came back to it, plodding through a bit more. Five more books passed in between struggling with this one and I'm afraid, for me, it didn't get any better. I'm quite sure that others will have a different experience and may even love it but, for me, it was like wading through treacle. 1*.

My thanks to the publisher for my copy via NetGalley; under the circumstances, I won't share this review on social media. This is - as always - my honest, original and unbiased review.

I initially requested this book because I thought the premise was interesting and novel, having heard about Morning Pages on social media. I quickly realised when I started the book that it wasn’t for me and stopped reading it early on.

I felt that it began in a confusing way, the journal entries felt a little chaotic (which I appreciate reflects the stream of consciousness) which I did not find it as interesting to read as I thought I would, nor was I invested in reading more. It felt like more work for me to try and unravel the and pick out the important parts from the parts of the entries, so I stopped reading.

I think this would be a great read for someone in a creative profession that is curious about the inner world of a writer or might like the idea of sifting through someone’s journal. Perhaps more for someone reflective that likes to ponder rather than someone looking for a quick read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for early access to this book!

Morning Pages is an easy read about Elisa, a playwright, who is writing her next play and chronicling life with her stoner, teenage son and her meddling mother in her morning pages. Some parts of this novel I really enjoyed and some I just skipped over. Not quite sure what the disconnect was for me. I really enjoyed the authors writing style though.

Morning Pages is a fun read with an interesting structure about a playwright stuck in sandwich generation duties. I breezed through this. The author tells the protagonist’s story in journal entries in the style of Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages, from her blockbuster book The Artist’s Way.

There’s something delicious about reading a diary or journal, and the author taps into this to keep us turning the pages.

Are you sick of aspirational characters? Come right in. This protagonist struggles with a pothead teen son who shows no interest in school. She plods through post-divorce life, while her ex husband has moved on with his new, younger wife. She owes a play manuscript to a director, but she believes her best work may already be behind her. And her aging mother won’t stop calling with mundane daily updates.

An enjoyable read that falls into cliches at times but that kept me turning the pages.

Morning Pages is about a struggling playwright as she navigates her relationships with her elderly mother, her teenage son, her ex-husband, her best friend. I enjoyed the different dynamics she experiences as a parent and a writer and as an adult-daughter and would like to read more from this author.

I had moments of absolute adoration and others where I felt completely lost. I ADORED the play within the story, the overarching concepts, and *most* of the characters but, it suffered from convolution. I think the idea of Morning Pages and the way it can help us, or not, as writers is brilliant, however; I am unsure about the execution of this particular book.

I think with a little trimming and editing this could have been a 5/5 read for me.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with this Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a totally unique book and I really enjoyed it! The novel consists of the main character's "morning pages" which is stream-of-consciousness journaling as taught by author Julia Cameron. Through these pages, we learn about Elise's life- her overbearing mother who needs a lot of care, her seemingly-delinquent son who has nothing to say, her ex-husband and her feelings about their divorce, as well as her best friend who isn't acting normally.

But the best part of the story is that Elise is a successful playwright who has been conditioned to write a new play... and there's a deadline looming. Within her morning pages, we get a sense of her main character, Laurey, who is grappling with similar feelings but in a totally different, unique context. There are many excerpts of the evolution of the play (creatively titled "Deja New") within Elise's morning pages and it's interesting how the play evolves as Elise evolves.

As an author myself (women's fiction, not plays!) I enjoyed commiserating with Elise as the deadline approaches- her thoughts and feelings, including self-doubt, fear, and exasperation, are all true to the creative process and I found that encouraging.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for an Advance Reading Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What emerges is a witty confessional in which Elise chronicles her life with her teenage stoner son and her overbearing and eccentric mother, who is losing her memory but not her profanity. She writes about her lingering feelings for her ex-husband, her best friend who is acting oddly, and the confusing encounters she has with a handsome stranger in an elevator.

As she writes, the marked-up scenes from her play, Deja New, are revealed, as a story within the story.

Morning Pages is about what life throws at you when you’re trying to write