I'm Not Her

I'm Not Her
299 Pages
ISBN 978-1-61188-215-5

It was a Tuesday like any other. And then it wasn’t. A simple encounter at a supermarket changed Carin Fletcher’s and Leann Cane’s lives – literally. Suddenly Carin, a pretty, self-absorbed, underemployed young college graduate, finds her life is switched with Leann, an uneducated, perennially poor, obese checkout clerk.

Both women are forced into lives opposite all they’ve ever known. Leann, at first thrilled to look and live like her favorite soap opera stars, discovers that the insecurities and desperation she’s grown up with don’t disappear because she looks like a model now. Fighting off the affections of a boyfriend she never chose and a controlling, plastic mother is hard enough, but she must fight off her own demons and figure out how to survive when her dreams come true.

Carin, suddenly fat, poor, meagerly employed, saddled with a kid, and married to a loser, must face her own, and the world’s, preconceived notions about life on the bottom rung. Carin spends her days avoiding the threats of Leann’s abusive husband, working two jobs to save money for her escape, and wrestling with her role as a mom to a precocious 6-year-old. She is surprised to learn that life can be rich even while destitute. She is even more surprised when she falls for a stock boy who repairs juke boxes and drives a hearse in his spare time.

More than a case of trading places, I’m Not Her explores the question of whether appearances or circumstances make us who we are. A brilliant, nuanced, and surprising tale about the way the world sees us and the course we are on, I’m Not Her is a remarkably assured first novel that introduces a profound new storyteller.

Cara Sue Achterberg

About Cara Sue Achterberg (Baltimore, Maryland Author)

Cara Sue Achterberg

Cara Sue Achterberg is a novelist, blogger, and rescue dog foster mom who lives on a hillside farm in New Freedom, Pennsylvania with her family and far too many animals. She has written three novels, I’M NOT HER, GIRLS' WEEKEND, and PRACTICING NORMAL, and one nonfiction book, LIVE INTENTIONALLY.

Her memoir, ANOTHER GOOD DOG: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs, will be released August 7, 2018 from Pegasus Press. For more information, blog links, and plenty of puppy pictures, visit www.CaraWrites.com.

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