A grieving young woman trades the career ladder for her freedom, turning fierce friendship and novel-writing into her life’s love story.
“Everyone has their own thing. Their own success. That’s what makes this so hard to figure out sometimes. It’s not one size-fits-all.”
Elle’s life can only become fun and fulfilling when she steps off the perfection-forward path she’s been committed to. Through the power of friendship and fate (by way of love letters from the grandmother who raised her), Elle is freshly motivated to escape her misogynist workplace and learns that life beyond the expected is so much more wonderful. But it’s not an easy road.
We first meet Elle in the middle of her suicide attempt six years earlier. “What would happen if I did it? What would happen if I listened to this sweet song of surrender?” she asks, while drinking wine on her balcony in the French Quarter, the reader with her for every excruciating, desperately depressed thought. The flashback ends on a cliffhanger answered only in the story’s final chapters, though we understand that Elle has worked hard to heal from the depths of her pain. Vividly written and dizzyingly dark, Unconventionally, Elle portrays deep emotional truths in evocative prose.
I loved how prominent Elle’s commitment to her mental health is in this book. Her confidence, wellbeing, and trust in her support system is strengthened by references to the suicidal scene that sparked her need to find the right medication and begin the important relationship with her therapist, Tina. Readers for whom therapy is an integral part of their routines will feel represented fully by the depth and development of Elle’s regular appointments with Tina.
Told through dual timelines that alternate present day leaps-of-faith with swoon-worthy flashbacks to Elle’s relationship with her ex, Jude (“I would never forget this man. His smile once made my knees shake. His voice once made my soul vibrate with need. God, I still had dreams of that night.”) this isn’t exactly a love story. Rather than a conventional romance, Webber writes Elle learning to love herself.
Unconventionally, Elle is an ode to freedom, following a young woman who moves to a new city and commits to starting over. Leaving her established career and going to stay in the Boston apartment her grandmother left to her, Elle decides she’ll freelance write, take yoga classes, and befriend her local baristas. Readers can expect the twists and turns of a life lived with the sincere hope that anything is possible, with the bonus thrill of Taylor Swift lyrics hidden in plain sight.
This lean into the unexpected creates a problem, though: Readers feel a constant, confusing push-pull of uncertainty about where the story is going. While this is reflective of real-life and will ring true for many readers, who I’m certain will find comfort and validation in the unexpected nature of Elle’s decisions, the reading experience can give off a sense of whiplash: As soon as I felt we were heading toward a love story with one man, or that I understood where Elle wanted her life to go, the story drops a completely opposing reveal upon us. Despite how disorienting this was, I felt more disappointed when, the further into the story we get, the stronger I realized that I was invested in the fate of characters whose personalities I was never going to grasp.
My favorite thing about spending time in a fictional world is suddenly seeing things in the real world that certain characters would love or laugh about. I kept waiting and hoping for that here, but the moment never comes. We learn a few qualities about each person when we meet them, establishing where they fit into the typical trope or personality boxes, and then… that’s it. The plot progresses, Elle goes through life, and their identities never fully form. Eventually, even the most romantic lines fall flat because we don’t know any of the characters well enough to believe them.
The New Orleans depicted here doesn’t mention much of race or class, which feels incomplete, but diverse readers will still see themselves in Elle’s representation of the crushing pressure to try to be perfect.
The way Jourdana Webber writes family—a longing for those who have died, the aching need for those who are alive to see us clearly, and the beauty of found-family—shines brightly. There’s a really lovely storyline where Elle’s writing journey meets her grandparents’ love story, the young writer entering the same writing contest that her grandmother once won, a surprising, typewriter-inspired tale itself filled with heartwarming, fondly-hold-the-book-to-your-chest-and-sigh twists.
“Is it success if you take a Xanax every day and hardly see the people you love?” Readers should be aware that this story deals with profound stress and anxiety, both in the workplace and at home, featuring panic attacks that are representative of the author’s own. Elle grieves her grandmother’s death while wrestling with profound guilt about prioritizing career over visiting the care home. In addition to Elle’s very close brush with suicide (which appears in haunting flashbacks both at the beginning and end of the book), both of Elle’s love interests are devastated by a parent’s death on-page.
Unconventionally, Elle is for readers who crave a jolt out of their own unsatisfying lives. Elle’s courage shines as an example that, however messy the journey may be, taking a chance is worth the shot. This is for readers right at the edge of ready to choose themselves over the world’s expectations, and those who are unafraid to do the real, hard work that it takes to find their best lives—complete with the fierce love of long-distance best-friends, regular therapy sessions, and a heart that races when a hot guy with a dazzling smile whispers in their ear.
Part second-chance romance, part anthem for independent women, Unconventionally Elle is a book that reminds us it’s always possible (and preferable!) to reinvent yourself if your heart isn’t in it where you are. And its meta, magical, full-circle final words will give you chills. This story is infused with genuine heart, endless hope, and a love for happily ever-after.
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