Holding Out For a Hero by Victoria Van Tiem

Release Date: 01.14.2016

Synopsis:

Their love survived the 80s. She wished she hadn’t. 

A funny, bitter-sweet romantic dramedy set to an 80’s soundtrack that proves first love never truly dies.

Libby London fell in love with the 80s, came of age in the 90s, and in the 21st Century is coming completely apart. Her New York fashion sensibility is more ‘vintage tragedy’

than ‘retro babe’ and might just be what’s holding her back in all matters of life and love…

At least that’s what her well-meaning friends think. They’ve staged an #80sIntervention determined to bring Libby bang up-to-date, but how do you move forward when the one you love holds you in the past? Between her dreaded birthday party, friend’s madcap ambush, and being forced to relocate her Pretty in Pink resale thrift shop, Libby’s at the end of her rope. If her therapist isn’t quick, it could be a literal one.

Review:

I adored this story even if it wasn't at all what I've anticipated.

I could easily identify with our heroine,Libby,she is stuck in the 80s the best decade of her life.Fortunately her amazing,funny and lovely friends decide to help her and finally bringing her in the new millennium with an infallible plan making her deal with all her trouble.

This book is beautifully written by Victoria Van Tiem,there are a lot of hilarious situations and also some moving moments.

I highly recommend it,this is one of those books that stay with you for a very long time and some more.

Excerpt:

Dr P.’s words rattle around inside my head relentlessly.

‘Describe what it feels like, Libby,’ Dr P. asked during one of our first meetings.

‘What depression feels like?’ I popped my eyes, at a loss for words.

He nodded. ‘Since I don’t experience it, how can I really know what you’re feeling?’

He had a point. But how do you describe something so dense? Empathy is recognizing another’s struggle, but true understanding only comes from personally living it. My eyes met his, and I shrugged.

‘Just try.’ He scratched under his fuzzy chin, waiting.

‘Well . . . it’s not like when you’re sad, or upset with a friend or anything. It’s not the same. 

It’s . . .’ I leaned back in the wingback chair and let it swallow me as I considered my words. 

‘When I’m upset normally, that’s all it is. You get fired up about something or someone hurts your feelings and whatever, you get over it like everyone else, but . . . sometimes at night it’s like a switch is thrown. I can physically feel it happen and everything starts moving in slow motion.’

Dr P. sat up. He was really listening, interested. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Um . . . I can think rationally, but the emotions are blown out of proportion and get distorted. They’re super-heavy, and then . . .’ I stopped, not wanting him thinking my Crazy Train was completely off the rails.

‘This is a safe place, you can say anything. I won’t judge you.’

‘I judge myself.’ It slipped out before I could filter it, so I quickly tried to explain. ‘You know the saying, “the voice inside your head”? Yeah, well, mine has a nasty attitude and gets mean. Really mean.’

This was when I really fought for medication, anything to shut the voice up. I had been seeing Dr P. for a few weeks, and I was still not sleeping and beyond exhausted. ‘If clinical depression is when your hormones get stuck and go out of whack, and I have borderline episodes, why not just send me to someone who can prescribe something to get it back in sync? I’d be set and it’d be done.’ I was being stubborn, resisting his methods and really not seeing the point.

He rubbed under an eye and took his time to answer. Maybe he got this question a lot; maybe he was frustrated with me. ‘Sometimes the meds are needed, for instance in postpartum . . . this is a chemical imbalance from a major change in the body, not from prolonged stress or emotional trauma. Medication is used to reset things, and it’s temporary.’

My jaw clenched. Not what I wanted to hear.

‘And you are functioning in the day-to-day; otherwise it would make sense to consider it, but only alongside treatment. Medication should never replace therapy. That’s only treating the symptom of an underlying problem. If you stopped the meds and never worked it through, you’d be right back where you started the minute you came off them.’

My arms crossed. ‘But talking can’t fix the problem. Maybe it can relieve some of the stress, but what can it fix?’

‘You’re right. It can’t fix or change the events that led to the trauma, but it can change how your body processes it, and this allows it to heal and move on. But you have to deal with it, let it out.’

I drummed my fingers. I didn’t want to let it out. I wanted to bury it.