In the supremely clever, touching and very humorous YOU’LL LOVE IT HERE, Natalie Sue presents a protagonist --- just like in her debut, I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL --- who at first glance seems totally unlikable, completely reprehensible, and utterly untrustworthy. In both novels, there is an event, a catalyst, that forces that character to face her life and her goals. Along these two journeys, we are treated not only to a cathartic reawakening of moral fiber, but also to enough humor to keep us chuckling at the vagaries of life and our predisposition to judge others by appearances and preconceptions. 

Mona Bucket is a marketing whiz who has been working around the clock to get promoted to director and finally be able to afford a decent apartment and a better, more comfortable life. She wants to escape this dated building filled with what she considers to be sketchy tenants. But in a moment of weakness, she allows the truth about a client's egregious behavior to spill from her lips during an important presentation. 

Mona is put on paid leave, and her supervisor attributes her reaction to the stress of losing her father three months before. That is partly the truth. He was an alcoholic, and his dependence on liquor ruined much of her childhood and even more recent events like her graduation from graduate school. She has a lot of anger about that, but also a good amount of guilt. The client she insulted was promoting his distillery, and his comments about alcoholics were beyond the pale --- and beyond her ability to smile and pretend the client is always right.

"Natalie Sue's talent in making us like someone who seems the antithesis of a likable character is truly miraculous. Her brilliance is her almost magical ability to draw us into Mona's life and allow us to witness her evolution..."

Mona really doesn't have family. Her mother calls her when she needs something or doesn't know how to deal with a situation. Instead of having a mother she can rely on, she has a mother who relies on her. So Mona looks out for herself after feeling that no one is going to help her. She has friends at work, so when she is forced to take a break, she trusts that they will keep things going for her in the office.

But being home is not what Mona wants to be doing. She lives in a four-story apartment building that dates back a century. There are 16 apartments, including one where the owner lives. Irene is a good-hearted woman who lives with her dog, Ernest. She let Mona move in when she didn't even have enough to scrape together the security deposit. Mona views the others who reside in the building as losers, people who aren't successful enough to rent “real” apartments with toilets that flush consistently and walls that actually provide soundproofing. She thinks of her apartment as “temporary,” a place to stay until she gets her raise and can move into better digs.

Right before her enforced leave, Mona and her work friends are having their usual drinks at the usual time, and she is reluctant to have that routine end. She orders round after round after round of drinks. She wakes up in her apartment the next morning with only a foggy idea of what transpired the night before. There's a broken vase from the lobby on her counter, and the building fire alarm is blaring. As she stumbles out the door, she sees the wreckage of the lobby and has flashes of causing at least some of the damage.

Although Mona has lived in the building for years, she's not on a first-name basis with any of her neighbors. In fact, she has clever nicknames for them based on how she perceives them. There's “Fighting Couple” (which is self-explanatory). “Weird Girl Beside Me” is the woman next door who wears bright clothing, changes her hair color every month, and has a cat. “Old White Perv” is always red-faced and sweaty with well-worn jeans, old T-shirts, a huge belt buckle, and a poster of a girl in a bikini over his parking space.

Across the street from the apartment building is a diner owned by an older couple whose son manages it. He's chatty and friendly with customers in a way that makes Mona feel uncomfortable because she's not like that. His nickname is “Diner Loudmouth,” and while all the tenants stand outside the building, waiting for the fire department to complete the evacuation, he brings coffee for everyone. Mona also remembers that something embarrassing happened at the diner during her drunken stupor the night before, but she doesn't recall any specifics.

Irene is taken out on a stretcher. When the firefighters bring out Ernest, Mona offers to care for the dog. Irene had injured her ankle while evacuating the building, and she goes to the hospital. When Mona visits (out of guilt), Irene's niece, Lana, asks if she would be willing to take over some of Irene's duties managing the building.

However, what Mona doesn't learn until later is Lana's ulterior motives, which aren’t going to be in the best interests of the residents. At first, Mona is unperturbed by the possible change. She's happy to do Lana's bidding because Lana has offered her something in return that will assist in her goal of upward mobility at work. 

But as Mona manages the building, cleans things up, and gets to know her neighbors, she discovers that they aren't really the people she had judged so cruelly when she only knew them from bits and pieces at a distance. Each person is a real human being with a sometimes painful history and disappointments.

In addition to the novel’s extremely touching sections, there are some hysterical antics. Mona and her new friend and neighbor, Jane, try to discover the identity of the thief who is stealing Jane's panties from the laundry. There's the strange smell coming from the apartment of the guy she's nicknamed “A1 Incel” for what she believes are obvious reasons. Is there a dead body in there? But Norman Olivers is much different from how Mona imagined. Similarly, Carmen Thurston, the Old White Perv, is anything but a perv, although he is white and might be considered old. And not to be missed are Sue's hilarious descriptions of Mona and her reactions to Ernest, the “geriatric weiner dog” whose “legs are so short that his penis grazes the floor” in a way that Mona pities. In spite of Ernest's unfortunate body shape, it's obvious that Sue has a soft spot for our canine friends.

Mona has a lot of learning to do, and her priorities change along the way. She finds that what had seemed to be of the utmost importance to her before she was forced to take her leave is perhaps not what she really wants out of life. And maybe the cutthroat race to the top of the marketing business, forsaking family and real friends, is not the way to live a happy life. True friends, the love of family, and forgiving herself for making choices that kept her from her father all make for a newer, better Mona.

Natalie Sue's talent in making us like someone who seems the antithesis of a likable character is truly miraculous. Her brilliance is her almost magical ability to draw us into Mona's life and allow us to witness her evolution as a human being, a daughter, a friend and neighbor, and even a girlfriend. Because it turns out that Mona is on a journey to find out who her best self might be --- and it's someone we want to know.