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    Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story
    Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story
    Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story
    Audiobook6 hours

    Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story

    Written by Isabel Gillies

    Narrated by Isabel Gillies

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Isabel Gillies had a wonderful life—a handsome, intelligent, loving husband who was a professor; two glorious toddlers; a beautiful house in their Midwestern college town; the time and place to express all her ebullience and affection and optimism. Suddenly, the life Isabel had made crumbled. Her husband, Josiah, announced that he was leaving her and their two young sons. "Happens every day," said a friend.

    Far from a self-pitying diatribe, Happens Every Day reads like an intimate conversation between friends. It is a dizzyingly candid, compulsively readable, ultimately redemptive story about love, marriage, family, heartbreak, and the unexpected turns of a life. On the one hand, reading this book is like watching a train wreck. On the other hand, as Gillies herself says, it is about trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, and loving your life even if it has slipped away.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 24, 2009
    ISBN9780743582919
    Author

    Isabel Gillies

    Isabel Gillies is a New York Times bestselling author of Happens Every Day, A Year And Six Seconds, and Starry Night. Her writing as been published in Vogue, the New York Times, Real Simple, Cosmopolitan, GOOP, and Saveur. A life long New Yorker and actress for many years, she lives in Manhattan with her husband, three kids and two dogs.

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    Reviews for Happens Every Day

    3.5/5

    165 ratings18 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Not what I was expecting. This book solely focuses on the breakdown of her marriage over a few short months. Gillies gives of a small dose of personal history her life as well as that of her ex-husbands. The story is well written and I'm sure it happens every day but Gillies manages to tell her story in a unique way. I was expecting more of a memoir about that time in her life including the aftermath, but this book just focuses on the breakdown. A very quick read for me, I finished it one evening. I would have like to read about how Gillies moved on or helped her boys heal or even found her new love, but I guess that's another book.
    • 3/5
      Quick read about what happens when the author's marriage falls apart out of the blue and how she deals with. Fast read.
    • 3/5
      As it turns out, I liked this book and the author much more at the beginning of her story than I did by then end. By the end I felt manipulated by her and the way she told her story. Although she admits that there were red flags she should have seen, she still felt completely blindsided when her husband announced he "couldn't do this anymore". She not only chose to ignore all signs that he was involved with the new professor, but she willfully threw them together. I found it less and less believable that she was so completely in love with Oberlin, Ohio, although it may see quite bucolic in retrospect. She paints herself as a woman left with no choices, but I just don't buy that. She had a teaching job at the college that she seemed to enjoy. She and her husband both came from enormously privileged backgrounds. If she had wanted to remain in Ohio so that her 3 year old and 18 month old would have a chance to be with their father more frequently, I feel certain she could have done it. Instead she moved back in with her parents in their Central Park West flat, even though they had retired and wanted to move to Florida. I think she wanted to return to New York and hopefully her acting career and old friends and new opportunities rather than get hay in her hair in Ohio. Ultimately I found her to be self-centered and manipulative. Sorry, Isabel.
    • 4/5
      Isabel Gillies never saw the end of her marriage coming, although she admits that she may have ignored some potential danger signs, such as the knowledge that her husband Josiah had left his first wife - who was pregnant with their child - for someone else (not Isabel). And even when she was forced to see it - when Josiah told her directly, more than once, that he couldn’t be in their marriage anymore - she made every effort to avoid looking. But eventually one has to see what’s really there - and what’s on its way out.Gillies is frank, forward, and not always particularly self-flattering in her depiction of this extremely difficult time. Happens Every Day was a painful, too-close-for-comfort read for me, because so much of what she describes about the last few months of her first marriage is shockingly similar to what happened in my own (although mine dragged it out a whole lot longer). My first marriage ended nearly a decade ago and I’ve processed it all by now, but there are things about that breakup that I’ll never forget, and the emotions associated with that time can still be stirred up when I’m exposed to reminders. A few particulars about Isabel and Josiah’s situation were especially, and uncomfortably, familiar. I had the sense that at times Isabel was fighting to stay married, period, more than trying to stay married to Josiah specifically; and despite Josiah’s repeated declarations that he “couldn’t do this anymore” and efforts to avoid being around Isabel whenever possible, it took him a while to get around to actually leaving. But he did leave, although I don’t believe that the new faculty member was the only reason why. Having been there myself has not changed my belief that relationships can’t be broken up by a third party unless they were shaky to begin with. However, I do believe that the third party can be a catalyst that forces one or both members of a couple to see that they really are shaky. These days, very few people are likely to ask me how my first marriage ended, but should it happen, I’m inclined to give them a copy of Happens Every Day - it would give them the framework, and I’d just have to fill in the differences and details. Sadly, it does happen every day.
    • 3/5
      This true story looks into the mind and heart of a woman who is told that the marriage she had dreamed of and the man that she loves is over. She allows us in her thoughts and is opening honest telling her story. The first few pages made me feel a connection with her. She had my attention and was telling me everything that was on her mind. She needed a friend that she could trust to sit back and just listen to her.What she went through does happen every day, but it happens differently for everyone. I didn't always agree on her way of handling things. I didn't agree of her wanting to hold on to something that was already lost, but then again I am not her. She gave permission to others to deal with it their own way. She admitted that she wasn't perfect, she could have done things better, and tried harder, but in the end would that have made a difference.It was a good read but I wouldn't say it was a "must read".
    • 3/5
      I think the author wants the reader to feel her outrage over the unfairness of her life. I didn't get that because, in fact, people do divorce everyday and one would hope that there would be more important things on their minds than their perfect new house with designer wallpaper. Not to be unfair - one mention of the WIlliam Morris wallpaper fine - but the page after page reminders of the beautiful house got nausiating. Also many women don't have summer houses on islands in Maine to retreat to where they can lick thier wounds at the yacht club, nor do thier parents have apartments overlooking Central Park in NYC. Gillies experience may have been more universal to the reader if she hadn't seperated herself from the rest of us with her privledge.
    • 3/5
      Happens Every Day reminded me of the kind of article I like best in the magazine Vanity Fair. You know, the scandal about some society couple who broke each other's hearts in the '50's. There are photographs of the great clothes they wore and the various houses they lived in. If the subjects weren't so glamorous, their predicaments would not be at all fun to read about. In fact, I had deep misgivings about continuing the book after Gillies referred early on to the "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness" quote as if it were something she had just heard and had to pass on. Thankfully, the rest of this exploration of the collapse of her marriage was told from her own emotions and observations, which were deeply felt enough to make me hate her husband, even if author Isabel Gillies wasn't as intellectually sharp as his new love interest. Gillies wisely painted a detailed picture of her life right before her husband told her he wanted to leave the marriage. The description of their William Morris wallpaper and the bathroom covered with prized family photographs drew me into the cheeriness of the house the couple had just bought to live in with their adorable blond sons, three and eighteen months. Even though I knew it was coming, I was still rocked by Josiah's dropping his bomb on Isabel out of the blue. Too late in the book, Isabel discloses that Josiah had left another wife with another son before her. Maybe that reflects a little more of Isabel's occasional cluelessness, which lets Josiah a tiny bit more off the hook, but not much. I certainly can't fault Isabel for not dwelling on the effect losing a father has on children of divorce. It was clearly too painful to do more than touch on the subject in the writing; it was excruciating to read the merest hint of their sadness. I found myself wanting to know more about the couple and googled them. What I found out about Isabel's background as of an offspring of the New York intellegensia filled some of the gaps in the memoir. Her father was the head of the foundation that oversees Andy Warhol's work, and her mother was the director of the now-defunct Brooke Astor Foundation. This was the life she would flee back to after the marriage was terminated. It's to Isabel's writing credit that she made made Oberlin's academia as interesting--and in some ways infinitely more pleasant--than New York. Her outsider's perspective captured a well-rounded picture of the elite of her poet/professor husband's milieu. She even managed to be fairly charitable toward the Other Woman, although reading in the epilog that the latter is now her sons' stepmother makes that understandable. I've left out Isabel's claim to fame--that she played Elliot's wife on TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and was in the movie Metropolitan. I found the latter more interesting, as it chronicles the doom of the haute bourgeoisie, the class Isabel herself represents. The reader is able to see that Isabel gets some of her ability to survive and ultimately prosper from the acting class she teaches. Her interior work as an actor and an acting teacher shows a depth of perception and the power to communicate it to others that makes me want to read the sequel about putting her life back together. And it's not just because she's back in New York.
    • 5/5
      Real, raw, and emotional, Gillies takes her readers on a tour of her former marriage. Though she allows the reader into her innermost thoughts, Gillies manages to tell her tale without sounding whiny or pitiful. I finished this book amazed at her strength, her honesty, and her ability to keep her shattered marriage from destroying her life. Beautiful prose, heartbreaking story, wonderful book.
    • 4/5
      It's not very often that I get a book that I can't put down...you know the kind that has your family asking, "What are you reading?" because you just can't look up from the page. Well, "Happens Every Day - an all-too true story," was just that. It's a sad story but told in an "I will survive" kind of attitude and is truly a story that has happened to so many. Gillies writes as if you are her best friend that she hasn't seen in years and she is telling you her story. It is tender, excruciating at times but told from the heart and I think everyone can identify with that kind of pain at one time or another in their lives. Unlike some of the other "chick-lit" books I've read this summer, this book has grit, Gillies shares the good, the bad, and the ugly.I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to escape for a few hours into someone else's life...yes, it's torturous at times but it's written with the kind of guts and soul baring that makes it impossible to put down. Whether you are married, single, or just building a relationship this is a book that will speak to you...scream to you...actually, cherish every single day as it very well may be your last. Don't let me scare you from this great read, as all good stories do, this one ends happily and you wish Gillies would just keep on writing about what happens next!Yes, this is one I would run out to your local "independent" bookstore to buy! It's a keeper!
    • 5/5
      I am so envious, which is ridiculous given the nature of this book, that the author was able to put this out as her first book. Watching her marriage fall apart, but realizing, as she says...if someone really wants to go, all you can do is watch them leave. She has humor, even during the worst of it.
    • 4/5
      Isabel and Josiah live in a college town in Ohio, raising their two young sons and teaching classes - he, poetry and she, acting. They purchase their dream house and see their lives moving the in right direction. Suddenly, out of no where as far as Gillies can detect, Josiah announces that he is finished with the marriage. In a flash the couple goes from planning their future to separated, with Josiah immediately engaging in a relationship with a colleague and friend. Gillies tells of how she struggled to understand the turn her life was taking and how to cope with the decisions made by her spouse and the ramifications they have for her and her boys.Quote: "I often credit Paul Simon and Nora Ephron for getting me through my divorce, but right up on top of the list would also have to be the sleeping drug Ambien. I simply could not have done what I did without it. I should write the company a letter. You can't save your life and be exhausted at the same time."I really wanted to like this book more since I am a fan of the author, an actress on Law and Order: SVU. While it was a quick, decent read it wasn't as engaging or deep as it could have been. Instead it just seems to skim the surface of the events leading to the dissolution of Gillies' marriage. In the first few pages Gillies says one of the reason she wrote her story is because friends told her she wrote good emails, and the whole book has that feeling. Like friends chatting, but it doesn't really transcend that level. I would actually be more interested in reading a follow up memoir to find out how the bizarre epilogue comes about. The very short afterword seems to negate half the feelings we were left with near the books' end. As the book closes, Gillies says she will never speak to the other woman again, in the paragraph of epilogue Gillies sings the woman's praises and says how much she likes her. In the book she holds out hope for her marriage long after her husband checks out, completely crushed about losing the love of her life, in the epilogue she thanks the actual love of her life, her second husband. It's not that I'm not glad to hear she found happiness so quickly, but the fast mentions leave me hoping for a sequel to hear how all these changes came about. I think it could be more interesting than the original.
    • 5/5
      Happens Every Day reveals the sadness, pain, and extreme disappointment Isabel experiences as she struggles to go on with daily life while her world crumbles around her. It lays bare the loneliness and devastation of being suddenly and completely abandoned by the person she is closest to, and it records the process—a series of profound moments, really—through which she comes to understand exactly what it means that her marriage is over.Read my full review at The book Lady's Blog.
    • 5/5
      Just a terrific book. That she can write so beautifully and naturally and evocatively about her husband suddenly deciding to leave her with two small children, so soon after it happened, is amazing - and that she was able to do it with so much balance and actual kindness to her ex-husband, without sacrificing the emotional pain she went through. Fascinating portrayal of what seems to be quite an insular and claustrophobic academic faculty environment at Oberlin.
    • 3/5
      The other reviews give good overviews of the story: woman who has incredible romance with her husband and then loses him to an affair. Inherently, this story is self-absorbed; its a memior about a heart-wrenching, life-changing event. I expected that, but I found it difficult to sympathize with Gillies, even though her situation was terrible. The book is a quick read and is very conversational. It's probably a good beach read.
    • 4/5
      “I’m not a writer but I have been told I write good emails, which has led me to…tell this story.” Isabel Gillies is correct, she is not a writer, and It Happens Every Day is pieced together like a long email—conversationally. Her style is an effective illusion of girl talk that allows her to express the disappointment she felt while her marriage to a college poetry professor collapsed. Her story of betrayal is a nightmare for any wife, and many pages are read in absolute dread of the known outcome. After reading her memoir, one feels they know Gillies, and upon consideration she seems like a real pain in the ass. One instance she has her weeping for about a half an hour in front of her children and a babysitter because her husband, Josiah, hadn’t made dinner plans to commemorate their first night in a new town. She also makes comments like this, “Because I was on the cover of Seventeen magazine when I was fourteen and I am an actress, I depend on the fact that, objectively, I am good looking. Tall, blond hair, odd looks but undeniably attractive.” The statement is irritating on many levels beginning with the fact that the second sentence simply isn’t one. It could also be argued that Gillies repeatedly threw an attractive colleague at her husband as some sort of bizarre test which sadly he fails.But I can’t help but like Gillies and every point one can make against Gillies only serves to make her more real. “Hiding is the last thing I do. I have no secrets,” she explains. Her candidness serves her well. Her take though admittedly one-sided is moving, and she tells it with remarkable grace.
    • 5/5
      The perfect kind of memoir: casually told, as if among friends; illuminating without falling into the too-much-information category; heartbreakingly real. I felt Gillies' desperation, sadness, anger, and frustration and read the book in a day.
    • 4/5
      For the fans of Law & Order: SVU - Isabel Gillies had a recurring role on the show playing Kathy Stabler. While at a wedding, Gillies reconnects with her childhood friend Josiah (I believe that's a pseudonym), and the two initiate a relationship and eventually get married. Moving around to accommodate Josiah's job as a college professor, the couple eventually winds up in Oberlin, Ohio with their two young boys. Worlds away from the hustle and bustle of New York City, Gillies nevertheless builds a life for herself and her family in the quiet town. They buy and renovate a house, make friends, and Gillies even begins teaching acting at the college. All of a sudden, Josiah announces that he's leaving Isabel and their two sons, and that he just "can't do it" anymore.Reading Happens Every Day was like sneaking a peak at someone's diary; Gillies left out nothing in describing the nitty gritty details of her marriage and subsequent divorce. The result is a heart-wrenching story that made me want to reach out and tell Gillies, "Oh no! Don't do that!", only to realize that I'd probably do the same thing given the situation. In the end though, Gillies' story is one of survival, hope, and happy endings.
    • 3/5
      I heard this book reviewd on NPR and it sounds like a fast and charming read. It was, both, but not as good as I expected from the review. It is the story of Isabel Gillies marriage to and eventual divorce from Josiah, the sadness and struggles that happen when a marriage that you believe to be good and strong and loving suddenly is discovered to be none of these things, the heartbreak when your husband, whom you love with all your heart, suddenly insists he cannot live with you any longer and it turns out he is having an affair with a new professor whom you have befriended and like very much. The general unfairness of life when you've gotten to be just where you want, have two young children, and things suddenly and unexpectedly fall apart.