Hope for the Worst by Kate Brandt

source: free review copy via the author
title: Hope for the Worst
author: Kate Brandt/ Twitter
published: Vine Leaves Press (March 7, 2023)
pages: 368
genre: fiction
rated: 4 out of 5 stars


blurb
Ellie is twenty-four years old, stuck in a dead-end job, and questioning the meaning of life when she meets the much older Calvin. It’s as if her deepest wish has been granted. Star of the Buddhist teaching circuit in New York’s Greenwich Village, his wisdom is exactly what she’s been seeking.

When she becomes the center of his attention, it’s almost pure bliss… until it becomes clear that Calvin expects sex as part of the bargain. At first reluctant, Ellie gradually falls ever more deeply in love, until Calvin is all she can think about.

Calvin’s lectures stress the Buddhist concept of non-attachment, but that doesn’t salve her wounds when he abandons her. Suddenly alone, Ellie must find a way to heal from her loss—but not before devotion to her teacher takes her halfway across the world to Tibet, and puts her life in real danger.

Hope for the Worst asks how far we will go for love, and what happens when we reach our limit. -quoted from Amazon.com

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my thoughts:
Hope for the Worst starts off in 1980’s NYC with 25-year-old Ellie Adkins working as a secretary at the Urban Research Center. This is a coming-of-age novel told in epistolary form through Ellie’s journal entries. There is something intimate about this style of storytelling that draws the reader in.

Ellie begins an affair with a 59-year-old man named Calvin. He considers himself a spiritual teacher and has a group following him. I found Calvin instantly unlikable with several red flags, which Ellie didn’t seem to notice. I was surprised Ellie would give Calvin the time of day but given the insights he shared and his spiritual teachings she finds this appealing. Ellie has this deep rooted need to matter to Calvin.
Ellie’s friend Cass convinces her to climb Mount Everest with her with a group called New Heights. Ellie is undecided and depressed, she’s slacking at work, Calvin seems to start losing interest in her and she is on the fence about going on the trek as she needs to raise $2,000.00 in donations to be able to go. She finally makes it to Tibet and it’s not what she expected.

I won’t go into further details in order to avoid plot spoilers, but for me, this is where the story really took off and I could not put the book down until the final page. I found that Hope for the Worst had a bit of a slow start, but once Ellie went abroad I was glued to the pages. Author Kate Brandt masterfully brings both the 1980’s NYC and the Tibetan settings to life. This is certainly an armchair travel kind of novel. This is also a coming-of-age story and I was curious to see what would become of Ellie. The writing reads like poetry at times and I loved that. There are also insightful passages as Ellie explores Buddism through Calvin, but also on her own. As she reflects on her life, Ellie flashbacks to her youth and to what happened with her parents as she learns more about herself. Hope for the Worst is a story about awakenings, travel, life and learning and I enjoyed it. Special thanks to Kate Brandt for my review copy.

“I live in a glass world now. My own self was a series of sliding doors.”- Hope for the Worst by Kate Brandt, 32% Kindle

“Everyone has always said I am beautiful, but when you said it, it meant something different. It meant you were seeing inside me and what you saw was good.” -Hope for the Worst, 8% Kindle

“It’s true,” she said. “Life is a catastrophe.” She looked at me. “So maybe now you are having your catastrophe.”
“What if I don’t come back from it?”
“You’ll come back. You were brave enough to let it happen in the first place.”- -Hope for the Worst, 63% Kindle.

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about the author:
Kate Brandt is a writer, adult literacy teacher, traveler, and student of Buddhism. She is a graduate of the MFA Writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, and her work has appeared in literary anthologies and a number of publications, including Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Literary Mama, and Redivider. Hope for the Worst is her first novel–a book about being in love, despair, magic, and the redemption of female friendship. To read more of Kate’s writing, go to her website, Katebrandt.net. You can also find her on instagram and twitter @Kbrandtwriter.

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Disclaimer: This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any kind of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. I am under no obligation to write a positive review. I received my copy of Hope for the Worst from Kate Brandt in exchange for my honest thoughts.