Congratulations On Everything

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.

This is a book in which not much happens, at least in the traditional sense. Our main character, Jeremy, owns a bar. His life has complications and struggles, as do the lives of the people around him. That's as much plot as you'll find here, but it's not entirely a bad thing. Plenty of stories in plenty of mediums have made a low-key, realistic style like this work. Whitlock has an ear for dialogue, and he writes believable characters, but I never once found myself actually invested in anything that happened to them.

Congratulations on Everything is a competently-written and fairly enjoyable novel, but it all felt like a setup for something more interesting (and this isn't the first time I've had this complaint about a book). Your mileage may vary, and I'm more interested in seeing what the author will write next. Hopefully a story with a bit more substance and focus.