Cherry is in management, working her way up the ladder at a big train company. Cherry is a fat woman who comes from a family of fat women, including her four sisters named Hope Honesty (Honny), Cherity (Cherry), Faith, and Joy. Her mother is deeply religious, as are some of her sisters, but Cherry isn't. The sisters have texting threads where they talk to each other. Recently, they started one without Hope, whom Honny believes has committed the unforgivable sin of going on Ozempic. The sisters believe that it is alright to be fat because they cannot lose the weight, no matter how hard they try, and that Ozempic is cheating and denying who they are.
Her husband, Tom, worked for an ad agency that did a lot of work for the train company, and that was how they met. They both studied art in college, but Tom was the real talent of the two. Tom has been writing a comic strip since before he met Cherry. The main character is 'The Guy, and Tom adds Chery as the character Baby. He posts the comic, as a kind of diary of his thoughts, online, where no one really notices it for a long while, until they do. A publisher of graphic novels offers Tom a contract, and Cherry encourages Tom to take it. Cherry is the driving force behind Tom, who can't seem to make decisions. The graphic novel becomes a hit, and Hollywood wants to make a movie out of it with Tom as screenwriter. Tom goes to L.A. and ends up staying there for a year. All the traveling for the book and writing the screenplay have put a strain on their marriage. Cherry tells him she wants a divorce when she catches him with another woman via FaceTime.
It's been a year, and Cherry is going to a concert by a much-beloved band from her youth. While there, she meets Russ, a guy she fell in love with in college, but who decided to date her skinny, beautiful friend. They leave the concert early and go home together. Pretty soon, they are dating. Russ is very different from Tom, and he makes her happy. Then Tom comes back from L.A. to pack up his stuff to move to California. Cherry hasn't spoken to him in a year, so things are a bit awkward between them, though they accidentally share a kiss.
Cherry is under a lot of pressure because of the movie, and everyone sees her as Baby, not Cherry. Russ has some problems with it too when he sees the trailer by accident, and begins to think he may be dating Garfield. Cherry invites Russ to Thanksgiving and Tom to Christmas with her family. Two men can possibly make her happy, but both must accept Cherry as she is. I loved this book, and I loved Cherry, who is confident, except in certain situations, like her job, but less so in her private life. This is a very interesting, well-written read, as evidenced by the quotes I took from it. The book goes back and forth in time, examining her relationships with Tom and Guss from the beginning to the present, and leaves you rooting for both. They've both made mistakes with Cherry and want to make it up to her. Rowell is known for her young adult novel "Eleanor and Park," which I reviewed here https://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2019/08/eleanor-and-park-by-rainbow-rowell.html)
Quotes
Anytime Cherry had tried to take Tom to a concert, he'd spent the whole night frowning at everyone, and he didn't even realize he was doing it. Tom had resting uncomfortable face.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 3)
Cherry watched them for a while-- then realized she was staring at people like some sort of twentieth-century weirdo. She should stare at her phone like a normal person.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 7)
He looked like the token Irish actor on a BBC drama--a little flintier than everyone else and a little more alive.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 10-11)
Goldenrod was the band that made "Omaha emo" a thing. Simple, pretty guitars, whiny, breathy vocals. Base-level unhappiness. All of Goldenrod's songs were about being lonely or feeling guilty. The lead singer was a famous depressive.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby)
Everybody was going to the Galway that night. They were twenty-two and still feeling like they had to go out and drink legally every weekend just because they could-- because it's what adults did. Adults drank in bars, not in dorm rooms and basements.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 15)
All Russ had told Cherry about his ex-wife was, "I think she always kind of hated me, and I mistook that for 'interesting.'"
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 91)
Cherry parked her used Hyundai at the end of a long line of black SUVs (Railroad execs drove the same cars as rappers).
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 125)
If you charted Tom's attractiveness to Cherry over these first few weeks, it would have looked like runaway inflation.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 140)
It was chilly, but Cherry wasn't wearing a coat over her baby blue angora cardigan. It would spoil the effect.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 146)
She thought about texting someone, but there came a point when you'd been so sad for so long, and so repeatedly, that you could not actually bear telling people anymore. When it felt like you were telling the same story.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 234)
I'm very pretty for a fat girl. It's like being very pretty for someone with three eyes or no nose, or very pretty for a malamute.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 241)
Dimples and freckles, that shouldn't be legal.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 269)
Women are born with clocks in their hips and calendars in their bodies, and Cherry's brain never stopped ticking.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 276)
Cherry's mom ignored everything that she possibly could, and forgave everything that she couldn't.
Rainbow Rowell (Cherry Baby, p 365)
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