Genre Fiction
![Jana Casale - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_jana_casale.jpg)
How to Fall Out of Love Madly: A Novel
"Everyone who loves Sally Rooney should be reading Jana Casale!"-Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
"An honest and compelling look at female friendship, romantic relationships, and infatuation."-Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses and Marrying the Ketchups
Three women confront the compromises they've made to appease the men they love.
Joy and Annie are friends and roommates whose thirty-something lives aren't exactly what they'd imagined. To make ends meet, they decide to rent their extra bedroom to Theo, who charms Joy with his salt-and-pepper hair and adoration of their one-eyed cat. When Annie goes to live with her boyfriend, Theo and Joy settle into a comfortable domesticity. Then Theo brings home Celine, the girlfriend he's never mentioned, who is possibly the most stunning woman Joy has ever seen. Joy resolves to do whatever it takes to hold on to him, falling ever deeper into an emotional hellscape of her own making. She is too obsessed to realize that Celine's beauty doesn't protect her from pain. Haunted by an event from her past, Celine can't escape her shame and finds herself in an endless cycle of self-sabotage.
Annie is baffled by Joy's senseless devotion to Theo, but she's consumed by her own obsessions: she can't stop parsing her commitment-phobic boyfriend's texts in an exhausting mission to maintain his approval. At work, where she fully embraces her natural assertiveness, Annie is a star. But when an anonymous letter lands on her desk accusing her esteemed and supportive boss of sexual misconduct, she is forced to decide who and what she's willing to stand up for.
Perceptive, mordantly funny, and full of heart, How to Fall Out of Love Madly examines women's many relationships-with one another, their mothers, their work, men, and themselves-to reveal their underlying power and complexity. It asks, why do so many smart, compassionate, otherwise empowered women tolerate egregious behavior from the men they love? And what will it take for them to reclaim control?
"An honest and compelling look at female friendship, romantic relationships, and infatuation."-Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses and Marrying the Ketchups
Three women confront the compromises they've made to appease the men they love.
Joy and Annie are friends and roommates whose thirty-something lives aren't exactly what they'd imagined. To make ends meet, they decide to rent their extra bedroom to Theo, who charms Joy with his salt-and-pepper hair and adoration of their one-eyed cat. When Annie goes to live with her boyfriend, Theo and Joy settle into a comfortable domesticity. Then Theo brings home Celine, the girlfriend he's never mentioned, who is possibly the most stunning woman Joy has ever seen. Joy resolves to do whatever it takes to hold on to him, falling ever deeper into an emotional hellscape of her own making. She is too obsessed to realize that Celine's beauty doesn't protect her from pain. Haunted by an event from her past, Celine can't escape her shame and finds herself in an endless cycle of self-sabotage.
Annie is baffled by Joy's senseless devotion to Theo, but she's consumed by her own obsessions: she can't stop parsing her commitment-phobic boyfriend's texts in an exhausting mission to maintain his approval. At work, where she fully embraces her natural assertiveness, Annie is a star. But when an anonymous letter lands on her desk accusing her esteemed and supportive boss of sexual misconduct, she is forced to decide who and what she's willing to stand up for.
Perceptive, mordantly funny, and full of heart, How to Fall Out of Love Madly examines women's many relationships-with one another, their mothers, their work, men, and themselves-to reveal their underlying power and complexity. It asks, why do so many smart, compassionate, otherwise empowered women tolerate egregious behavior from the men they love? And what will it take for them to reclaim control?
Editorial Reviews
"In subtle, exquisitely precise prose, How to Fall Out of Love Madly astounds with its insights about love and the search for meaning and self-acceptance. Everyone who loves Sally Rooney should be reading Jana Casale!"-Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
"Jana Casale is a master storyteller-observant, witty, sharp, and funny. How to Fall Out of Love Madly is an honest and compelling look at female friendship, romantic relationships, and infatuation."-Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses and Marrying the Ketchups
"With wit, brains, and empathy, Jana Casale throws open the curtain on the inner lives of three young women and illuminates their pain and beauty. How to Fall Out of Love Madly is a literary triumph, and it's also an absolute delight."-Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me
"Jana Casale so intimately captures how these smart, capable characters talk themselves into living lives that they don't enjoy. This book is funny and heartfelt-readers will root for all three of these women as they shake themselves off and start asking what might actually make them happy."-CJ Hauser, author of Family of Origin and The Crane Wife
"Achingly funny, startlingly intimate, viciously familiar, How to Fall Out of Love Madly says every quiet part of being a woman out loud."-Megan Angelo, author of Followers
"How to Fall Out of Love Madly fearlessly explores three women's shifting desires and the systems that do-and do not-constrain them. Casale is a master observer, and she renders the frustrations and joys of everyday life in piercingly clear prose. She is also mordantly funny."-Grant Ginder, author of Let's Not Do That Again...
"Jana Casale is a master storyteller-observant, witty, sharp, and funny. How to Fall Out of Love Madly is an honest and compelling look at female friendship, romantic relationships, and infatuation."-Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses and Marrying the Ketchups
"With wit, brains, and empathy, Jana Casale throws open the curtain on the inner lives of three young women and illuminates their pain and beauty. How to Fall Out of Love Madly is a literary triumph, and it's also an absolute delight."-Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me
"Jana Casale so intimately captures how these smart, capable characters talk themselves into living lives that they don't enjoy. This book is funny and heartfelt-readers will root for all three of these women as they shake themselves off and start asking what might actually make them happy."-CJ Hauser, author of Family of Origin and The Crane Wife
"Achingly funny, startlingly intimate, viciously familiar, How to Fall Out of Love Madly says every quiet part of being a woman out loud."-Megan Angelo, author of Followers
"How to Fall Out of Love Madly fearlessly explores three women's shifting desires and the systems that do-and do not-constrain them. Casale is a master observer, and she renders the frustrations and joys of everyday life in piercingly clear prose. She is also mordantly funny."-Grant Ginder, author of Let's Not Do That Again...
Short Excerpt Teaser
Joy
Let me tell you something about my stomach. It's big and I hate it. I think about it all the time. I think about the way it looks in shirts and dresses, the way it sits over my jeans and hangs over the edge. When I'm sitting, it juts out in the most hideous way with big folds. There's no flattering way for me to sit with it so I think about ways to not sit, and I think about sucking it in whenever it is that I am sitting. I think about what other people think about it, and what they think of me because of it. I never want to look at it, but I can't stop staring at it in the mirror whenever I get the chance. I would love to tell you that it doesn't define how I think of myself, but those are just words and they're not making me feel what it is I want to feel and what it is that I want to feel is thinner. I cry about it a lot, mostly to myself and sometimes to my mom. She usually tells me I'm crazy and that I should stop obsessing. One time, just once, when I'd called and started in on the same conversation about my weight and how fat I am, she said as I was sobbing,
"Jenny Craig, maybe?"
And that moment I think about all the time. I'll hear her voice as I wait at a stoplight or even when I pee.
"Jenny Craig, maybe?"
I know it would kill her to think that even though she's told me I am thin ten thousand times over, the only thing I think about is the one time she said, "Jenny Craig, maybe?" I know it would kill her so I don't tell her; I just think it and wonder what motion there was in her heart the moment she said it and I fear whatever that motion was is not part of me like I want to believe everything about my mom is part of me. And then I feel as vast and big as anything else. Empty is the word for it. So I sit down and suck in my stomach and just keep on going, Jenny Craig, forever.
Joy was put on birth control at thirteen years old by her doctor, who was a man. He was old and had been her doctor since she was a baby. When her mother had told him in private that her daughter had very painful, heavy periods, he suggested it, and without question they put her on a small dose of hormones. From the age of thirteen until now, at nearly thirty years old, Joy had not ovulated.
At first she immediately felt superior to everyone else in her eighth-grade class. If I wanted to have sex right now I totally could, and I wouldn't get pregnant, she often thought. But the thought such as it was was useless because no one had sex with Joy until she was twenty-four. Besides that, the birth control did help with her cramps, which had been so violent that she'd once thrown up from the pain. Her mom and she had been at the movies seeing Disney's Tarzan, and she'd been trying desperately to keep from having to go home. She even took off her shoes and tucked her feet up under herself trying to find a position comfortable enough to stop the pain. But nothing worked, and she found herself running to the bathroom nearly doubled over. She could vividly remember throwing up completely undigested Sno-Caps to the sound of a little kid's voice outside the bathroom stall saying, "I think someone is throwing up."
It was a godsend when the cramps eased up and she didn't have a ton of side effects from the hormones either, as her mother had feared she might.
"If you feel bad at all let me know because there are other options that might help just as much," she'd say, but Joy was fine and felt better. But what she didn't know and wouldn't know was that the minute she started the pills her brain's response, besides stopping ovulation, was to change the way it perceived other people's pheromones, and because of this, Joy wasn't attracted to the men to whom she would have been if she'd never gone on the pills to begin with. Instead she found herself attracted to many of the wrong types of men and every relationship she'd pursue would end badly. She dated a guy named Felix and a guy name Cory and then a guy named Guy. Her only real relationship was four and a half months long. His name was Ryder and he thought extremely highly of himself. Joy knew very early on that she wasn't in love with Ryder, and that he was at best an inappropriate choice for her and at worst a damage to her self-esteem, but she didn't let herself acknowledge even one of those thoughts. Instead, she tried desperately to convince herself that she was in love with him, even telling friends, "I think I'm falling in love with him," something she could text and almost believe, but the second she...
Let me tell you something about my stomach. It's big and I hate it. I think about it all the time. I think about the way it looks in shirts and dresses, the way it sits over my jeans and hangs over the edge. When I'm sitting, it juts out in the most hideous way with big folds. There's no flattering way for me to sit with it so I think about ways to not sit, and I think about sucking it in whenever it is that I am sitting. I think about what other people think about it, and what they think of me because of it. I never want to look at it, but I can't stop staring at it in the mirror whenever I get the chance. I would love to tell you that it doesn't define how I think of myself, but those are just words and they're not making me feel what it is I want to feel and what it is that I want to feel is thinner. I cry about it a lot, mostly to myself and sometimes to my mom. She usually tells me I'm crazy and that I should stop obsessing. One time, just once, when I'd called and started in on the same conversation about my weight and how fat I am, she said as I was sobbing,
"Jenny Craig, maybe?"
And that moment I think about all the time. I'll hear her voice as I wait at a stoplight or even when I pee.
"Jenny Craig, maybe?"
I know it would kill her to think that even though she's told me I am thin ten thousand times over, the only thing I think about is the one time she said, "Jenny Craig, maybe?" I know it would kill her so I don't tell her; I just think it and wonder what motion there was in her heart the moment she said it and I fear whatever that motion was is not part of me like I want to believe everything about my mom is part of me. And then I feel as vast and big as anything else. Empty is the word for it. So I sit down and suck in my stomach and just keep on going, Jenny Craig, forever.
Joy was put on birth control at thirteen years old by her doctor, who was a man. He was old and had been her doctor since she was a baby. When her mother had told him in private that her daughter had very painful, heavy periods, he suggested it, and without question they put her on a small dose of hormones. From the age of thirteen until now, at nearly thirty years old, Joy had not ovulated.
At first she immediately felt superior to everyone else in her eighth-grade class. If I wanted to have sex right now I totally could, and I wouldn't get pregnant, she often thought. But the thought such as it was was useless because no one had sex with Joy until she was twenty-four. Besides that, the birth control did help with her cramps, which had been so violent that she'd once thrown up from the pain. Her mom and she had been at the movies seeing Disney's Tarzan, and she'd been trying desperately to keep from having to go home. She even took off her shoes and tucked her feet up under herself trying to find a position comfortable enough to stop the pain. But nothing worked, and she found herself running to the bathroom nearly doubled over. She could vividly remember throwing up completely undigested Sno-Caps to the sound of a little kid's voice outside the bathroom stall saying, "I think someone is throwing up."
It was a godsend when the cramps eased up and she didn't have a ton of side effects from the hormones either, as her mother had feared she might.
"If you feel bad at all let me know because there are other options that might help just as much," she'd say, but Joy was fine and felt better. But what she didn't know and wouldn't know was that the minute she started the pills her brain's response, besides stopping ovulation, was to change the way it perceived other people's pheromones, and because of this, Joy wasn't attracted to the men to whom she would have been if she'd never gone on the pills to begin with. Instead she found herself attracted to many of the wrong types of men and every relationship she'd pursue would end badly. She dated a guy named Felix and a guy name Cory and then a guy named Guy. Her only real relationship was four and a half months long. His name was Ryder and he thought extremely highly of himself. Joy knew very early on that she wasn't in love with Ryder, and that he was at best an inappropriate choice for her and at worst a damage to her self-esteem, but she didn't let herself acknowledge even one of those thoughts. Instead, she tried desperately to convince herself that she was in love with him, even telling friends, "I think I'm falling in love with him," something she could text and almost believe, but the second she...
