screenshot106 Talli Roland’s Chick Lit novel explores the question of how much our outlook can influence our life.

Emma Beckett enjoys her precise, safe life and likes her fiance and the predictable life they are planning. She’s grounded firmly in reality and thinks that being too optimistic only leads to heartache and chaos. When she loses her job and fiance in the same week, Emma is thrown and unsure what to do next- except look for more of the same. Then her best friend challenges Emma to spend some time seeing life as though the glass is half full.

Emma’s in for a whirlwind when she decides to take on a Pollyanna attitude, and look for the good in everything.

The Pollyanna Plan has many of the typical elements of a chick lit novel, so fans of the genre will not be disappointed.  But what I liked most about the book is the frisson of excitement I felt when Emma begins to think “what if?..” And when Emma takes one big chance, I felt that same twinge, wondering if I would ever be brave enough to just take the BIG CHANCE if it ever presented itself.

An interesting take that Roland provides in The Pollyanna Plan is the challenge to Emma’s potential new relationship- it’s one that not many of us face, and one that would take a big leap to jump into.  Roland handles it well, and in the way we would all like to be were we faced with the same challenge ourselves.  I think Emma is quite relatable as she tries to navigate a path to her ideal life, dealing with a lot of the trepidation and two-steps-forward-one-step-back many of us may experience.

I really enjoyed reading this one, and look forward to more from Roland.