I'm a huge fan of actress Lauren Graham. When I saw that she was making her writing debut, I was onboard to read her first novel.
Someday, Someday, Maybe is the story of Franny Banks, an aspiring actress in her late twenties, who is chasing her dreams in New York City. Franny is worried about failure, specifically leading a failed life if her dreams don't work out. She has given herself a deadline to "make it" and if it doesn't work out, she will go with Plan B, getting her teaching credentials and marrying her college sweetheart. This deadline is quickly approaching and Franny's life enters a period of upheaval both professionally and romantically. She beings to learn some difficult life lessons.
Graham is a good writer and her story, although predictable, was mostly enjoyable. Franny is a likable and relatable protagonist. I really liked that the story was set in the 1990's, giving me a bit of nostalgia for a time when we didn't have Smart Phones and human interaction was so different. Franny uses a lot of pay phones in the story and she keeps her schedule in a Filofax. It made me miss my Doc Martens. If you're an actor or struggling to be one, the book is filled with theatre/film references and industry tidbits that are amusing.
There was one part of the story that really, really bothered me. Franny and her classmate are assigned a scene from a play for their acting class and the play is discussed rather extensively. Graham named the play The Blue Cabin, but as I was reading the description of this fictional play, I realized that Graham was describing of one of my favorite plays, Cindy Lou Johnson's Brilliant Traces. Maybe she couldn't get permission to use Brilliant Traces as the real play that her character's were assigned, but in that situation, I don't know why she wouldn't have made up something completely original. There were too many similarities and this one part of the story got under my skin.
Overall, Someday, Someday, Maybe is an okay debut, but I definitely prefer Graham as an actress, rather than a writer. If she writes a second book, I'm not sure if I would buy it.