Book Review: Start Without Me by Joshua Max Feldman

If there were a more perfect book to be reviewing the week of Thanksgiving, I certainly am not sure what it would be. Start Without Me by Joshua Max Feldman is set on Thanksgiving Day. We meet Adam and Marissa in this novel, characters who have a chance meeting. 

We start the novel with Adam, who is home for Thanksgiving after spending many years away from home. He’s on the couch, and contending with the fact that he’s managed to create a situation where he needs to apologize to everyone for his behavior while struggling with alcoholism. 

In the third chapter, we start to get to know Marissa. Marissa is in a hotel, she’s a flight attendant, and she’s heading to Thanksgiving at her in-laws’ home during a period in her marriage that is experiencing a lot of upheaval. 

The two find themselves in the airport’s restaurant for breakfast, and they hit it off instantly. This leads to a lot of bonding, and quite the odyssey of discovery. If you’re looking for a novel to read while the pies bake, this is your book. 

About Start Without Me

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (October 30, 2018)

The author of the critically acclaimed The Book of Jonah explores questions of love and choice, disappointment and hope in the lives of two strangers who meet by chance in this mesmerizing tale that unfolds over one Thanksgiving Day.

Adam is a former musician and recovering alcoholic who is home for Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. Surrounded by his parents and siblings, nieces and nephews—all who have seen him at his worst—he can’t shake the feeling that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll always be the one who can’t get it right.

Marissa is a flight attendant whose marriage is strained by simmering tensions over race, class, and ambition. Heading to her in-laws for their picture-perfect holiday family dinner, her anxiety is intensified by the knowledge she is pregnant from an impulsive one-night-stand.

In an airport restaurant on Thanksgiving morning, Adam and Marissa meet. Over the course of this day fraught with emotion and expectation, these two strangers will form an unlikely bond as they reckon with their family ties, their pasts, and the choices that will determine their way forward.

Joshua Max Feldman focuses his knowing eye on one of the last bastions of classical American idealism, the Thanksgiving family gathering, as he explores our struggles to know—and to be—our best selves. Hilarious and heartrending, Start Without Me is a thoughtful and entertaining page-turner that will leave its indelible mark on your heart.

Social Media

Please use the hashtag #startwithoutme and tag @williammorrowpaperbacks and @tlcbooktours.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About Joshua Max Feldman

Joshua Max Feldman is the author of The Book of Jonah. Born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, he has lived in England, Russia, and Switzerland, and currently resides in Brooklyn.

Find out more about Joshua at his website, and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.