Someone’s Gotta Give by Alisha Fernandez Miranda is a fresh, funny, and emotionally layered novel that captures what it really feels like to lose yourself in the mess of marriage, motherhood, and ambition—and what it takes to find your way back. Thank you to Zibby Publishing and NetGalley for my gifted ARC.
From the first page, I felt like I knew Lucia. Not because her life is particularly familiar—I’m not jetting off to Buckingham Palace or balancing teething toddlers with private banking clients—but because the internal tug-of-war she experiences is so honest. She’s a new mom in a new country, sleep-deprived, lonely, and stuck in a cycle of trying to “be grateful” when, deep down, she knows something is missing. That something becomes the catalyst for the novel when she stumbles into a job at an elite private bank, advising the absurdly rich on how to give their money away.
It sounds glamorous, and in some ways it is. Lucia’s days shift from spit-up and sleep training to black-tie galas, discreet meetings at private clubs, and hobnobbing with British aristocracy. The details are vivid and sharp without being overindulgent. You can smell the old money and taste the champagne. But what Miranda does so well is keep one foot in Lucia’s real life—her aching back from carrying her daughter, the resentment bubbling between her and her husband, the constant guilt for missing bath time or bedtime. It’s not just that she’s balancing two worlds; it’s that she’s quietly drowning in both.
There’s a brilliant tension in the book between the surface sparkle of philanthropy and the moral murkiness underneath. Lucia used to fight for immigrant causes and grassroots change. Now, she’s helping billionaires donate to opera houses and slap their names on buildings. She tells herself she’s making a difference, but that inner voice keeps whispering that something is off. One of the best lines in the novel comes when Lucia reflects, “Maybe I wasn’t saving the world anymore, but at least I could make it look like someone was.” That sentence hit hard—it’s funny, biting, and painfully true. It also captures Miranda’s tone perfectly: light on the surface but deeply aware of the compromises women make in the name of having it all.
Lucia’s relationship with her husband also deserves attention. It’s one of the more realistic portrayals of modern marriage I’ve read in a while. They love each other, but they’ve stopped being a team. The resentment is subtle at first, buried under polite conversations and small sacrifices. But it grows. His increasing connection with his ex is a slow burn that adds tension, not drama. Miranda resists easy answers—there’s no villain here, just two people quietly drifting apart. That restraint made the emotional moments land harder.
One of the things I appreciated most was that Miranda never lets Lucia off the hook. She makes bad choices. She’s selfish at times. She zones out, she lashes out, she ghosts her best friend. But she’s also trying—really trying—to claw her way back to a version of herself she can live with. The character arc is satisfying not because Lucia becomes perfect, but because she finally stops lying to herself. That’s growth.
There are lighter, funnier moments too. Lucia’s missteps as an American trying to navigate upper-crust British society are often hilarious—awkward curtsies, misunderstood slang, badly timed jokes. And the behind-the-scenes look at the charitable elite is endlessly entertaining. There are definite “Devil Wears Prada” vibes, but with more self-awareness and less snark. Think Younger meets Fleishman Is in Trouble, but with a working mom at the center of it all.
The pacing is tight, the dialogue snappy, and the emotional payoff well-earned. By the final chapters, I found myself rooting hard for Lucia—not to stay in her job, not to win anyone back, but to finally choose herself. This book is about what happens when you stop asking “Can I have it all?” and start asking, “What do I actually want?”
Alisha Fernandez Miranda has written a debut novel that is as smart as it is entertaining. Her voice is clear and confident, her characters multidimensional, and her insights spot-on. There’s no neat bow at the end—and thank god for that. What you get instead is something better: a real woman, making real choices, and owning every messy, complicated part of it.