You’ll Love it Here
By Natalie Sue
William Morrow
In an apartment building, dozens of lives are being lived all at once. It’s kind of beautiful, if you stop to think about it. There are so many stories contained in one building, each as complex as the next. But when you live in an apartment, especially a crappy one, you see only your own.
In Natalie Sue’s sophomore novel “You’ll Love it Here,” Mona lives in an old apartment with transient neighbors. People are in and out within a year or so.
“I normally avoid my neighbors,” she narrates in an early chapter. “I’m not about to engage in small talk with the people stuck living here alongside me. It’s not that I think they’re all bad (some seem to be a tad fucked up, but nothing too wild); it’s that there’s no reason to create permanence in our relationship.”
That is, until she is put on mandatory leave, and her building catches on fire. Then she finds herself as the interim superintendent of her building tasked with sneakily making improvements to the building so that it can be sold in exchange for a better apartment and hopefully the big promotion she’s been pouring hundreds of hours into — all while hiding it from her neighbors/new friends.
Author Natalie Sue is the queen of writing the hot mess girl boss book. “You’ll Love it Here” is an exceptional take on a Scrooge-like character learning to love the place and people they call home. Mona isn’t always likeable, but she is fun to root for through hijinks of falling for the boy next door, chasing down a panty thief, and trying — with varying degrees of success — to get her eclectic group of neighbors to cooperate with her improvement efforts.
For readers of “Anxious People” or “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” Sue’s sophomore novel delivers a delightful story about taking a chance on strangers and belonging to each other, even if on the surface, they don’t have much in common. But it’s also an escapist fantasy about leaving the corporate grind and getting back in touch with what really matters in life, Hallmark holiday movie style.
“You’ll Love it Here,” is a book that makes you feel something. It’s also a book about genuine connection in the age of remote work, parasocial relationships and ruthless economic development. This kind of story has been told before, but under Sue’s hand, it doesn’t feel like a recasting of old tropes. The connections that Mona forms feel genuine, and the book is funny. Sue has created a soft place to land in a world of hurry. It’s the perfect read for anyone who’s been feeling a little disconnected lately.
