Being nice is fine unless…

Rare is the person who can look honestly at their life and relationship patterns, and then act on what they see. Many of us stumble through, blaming bad luck or bad men/women. Introspection takes much more courage, and I commend author Melissa Grunow for hers. It’s hard to recognize why things are going sour when we have been taught to give more than we get, and to be compassionate and patient with others — in other words, be nice. This is an important message for pushovers: being nice is fine unless you’re always compromising or selling yourself short.

Fight for yourself

Ms. Grunow endures and grieves the failure of a marriage and several relationships before she realizes it’s “no use fighting with someone who didn’t see me worth fighting for.” When she makes this realization, she acts decisively and swiftly, so much so that she doesn’t recognize her own assertiveness. As a reader, I was so invested in her fight that I wanted to give her a high five. That’s the hallmark of a great read.

Realizing River City is available on Amazon. ISBN 978-1928094227. Published by Tumbleweed Books.

* Winner of Second Place-Nonfiction Book of the Year Awards from the Independent Author Network (IAN)
* Winner of “Outstanding Memoir” category from IAN
* Finalist in the “First Book, Nonfiction” category from IAN

Melissa Grunow is a regular contributing writer to Literary Arts Review. Her work has also appeared in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, New Plains Review, Blue Lyra Review, Temenos, and Yemassee, among many others. She is also a live storyteller who participated in the 2016 Metro Detroit Listen to Your Mother show and regularly competes in The Moth StorySLAM. Melissa holds a BS in English-creative writing and journalism from Central Michigan University, an MA in English from New Mexico State University, and an MFA in Creative Writing with distinction from National University.

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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of In the Context of Love, adult contemporary fiction, a 2016 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist.

Angelica Schirrick had always suspected there was something deeply disturbing about her family, but the truth was more than she bargained for.