Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny is set in Boyne City, a town of a few thousand in Northern Michigan (and a place where Heiny once lived). The protagonist is Jane, a second-grade teacher, and follows her life from 2002 through 2019, but is just as much about the quirky characters who make up her small-town world, characters with annoying flaws and endearing virtues. The novel is funny and poignant, and all the characters are portrayed spot on. Women, particularly moms, will appreciate the blow-by-blow and often hilarious descriptions of the joys and sorrows of ordinary life (e.g., Paw Patrol is aired at the same time as Jeopardy, precipitating a crisis between a 3-year-old and an adult over control of the clicker). Reviewers uniformly call the book heart-warming. Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
