This was quite a fun romp through some Cleveland suburbs, some changing life circumstances, awkward family situations, and . . . Iowa.

Two young ladies faced with some dead-end possibilities go on a road trip with a couple of books for narrative and end up changing their lives. One pairs up with Certvantes' [b:Don Quixote|3836|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546112331l/3836._SX50_.jpg|121842] and the another, Austen's [b:Emma|6969|Emma|Jane Austen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1373627931l/6969._SY75_.jpg|3360164]. Hilarity (and eventually tragedy) ensues when each starts speaking, acting, thinking and even looking like the titular characters of their adopted books.

I'll admit I enjoy turning a page and finding a Cleveland landmark, street corner or scene that I've visited or live nearby. Author [a:Susan Petrone|1044699|Susan Petrone|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1578404936p2/1044699.jpg] does a good job of this, leading us around the Coventry neighborhood and visiting the local hospitals. Well done!

I was a little concerned that while for one character, her ending seemed to have been "written", the other seemed to have much more freedom in escaping the written ending. It didn't seem quite fair, nor did there seem to be enough grief expressed.
And separately, there are probably better ways of injecting an author's political opinions into a narrative that are less jarring. I know Vonnegut did it. . . .

But these are minor issues in a first, very fun novel. And overall, a very fun read. I finished it in an evening mostly because I couldn't put it down. I look forward to others that she's written and can highly recommend both [b:Throw Like a Woman|53283748|Throw Like a Woman|Susan Petrone|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1588000618l/53283748._SY75_.jpg|42295509] and [b:The Heebie-Jeebie Girl|50491647|The Heebie-Jeebie Girl|Susan Petrone|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579055224l/50491647._SY75_.jpg|73072991]. ( )

So here's the basics: best friends and roommates, Martha and Nina are twenty-something cocktail waitresses, aimlessly drifting through life. They drink too much, they smoke too much, they migrate from man to man. Well read and well educated, they just need to find direction.

And then on an impetuous road trip the unexplainable, the remarkable, the improbable happens. An impromtu visit to a mysterious tattoo parlor changes Martha and Nina forever.

Literally.

The girls begin to slowly turn into their favorite literary characters. Physically and mentally, Martha begins to morph into the imperious and proper Emma Woodhouse while Nina (the poor girl) slowly turns into the knight-errant, Don Quixote.

What follows is both hysterical and heart-breaking as each of the girls must now follow her new destiny.

Petrone writes sharp, literary-minded dialogue and the plot moves along at a pretty darned good clip. Once the characters (and the reader, for that matter) wrap their minds around what it really going on, the literary references take on a new importance and it becomes a fun challenge to see where Petrone is going with all this.

I have always enjoyed novels invoking literary classics. For those of you who are drawn to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, this novel will also take you on a literary romp you won't soon forget.

You'll have to suspend belief for this one, but that is half the fun. Who we are, where we're heading and how to find our destiny is the other half. Enjoy! ( )

Best friends and roommates Martha and Nina have a problem — their lives don’t seem to be taking them anywhere more interesting than the bar filled with meatheads where they work in Cleveland, Ohio. And their twenties are quickly drawing to a close. After a particularly grueling evening on their feet — and Martha getting a glimpse of a different person, a better person, in the dirty bathroom mirror — the ladies decide it’s time to make a change. They hop in the car and embark on a road trip, decided to be guided only by their trusty, beloved copies of Jane Austen’s Emma and Don Quixote de la Mancha.

In Susan Petrone’s A Body At Rest, Martha desperately wants something “magical” to happen — something to remind her that there’s more to life than the shallow, seemingly empty existence she and Nina have been living in recent years. Nina’s days are filled with interactions with married men, and bouncing from one activity to the next; Martha fuels her afternoons with cigarettes, booze and novels. And they’ve both had just about enough.

Their wanderings take them to a cornfield in Iowa, where Martha stands and waits to feel a shift in time, life — something. Nothing seems to have happened . . . until the women return to Ohio. And some very interesting changes begin to take place. Martha finds herself walking in the footsteps of beautiful, self-absorbed Emma Woodhouse, while Nina seems to be abandoning her womanhood to become a taller, leaner shadow of her former self. And they learn quite a bit about each other — and the figures they come to inhabit — along the way.

I enjoyed this book — it was fun, mostly light-hearted and interesting. As a huge Austen fiction buff, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about a woman “becoming” Emma Woodhouse, but I’m always up for something new! And while the actual mechanics of what happens to Martha and Nina are never really explained (and can be a bit confusing at times), I still appreciated a different spin on Austen’s classic character. Nina and Martha’s friendship was strong, and those bonds carried them through all of the story’s surprising twists and turns. At points I wasn’t really sure where the story was going, but it arrived at a very nice, resolute place — and an unexpected place, too. The ending did feel a bit abrupt, but that added to the unsettling effect of the turn of events.

A good read for Austen fans, and those looking for a good contemporary fiction piece with flavors of the past interspersed! There are plenty of literary allusions to the original texts to keep fans of both classic books looking for clues. ( )