Thank You For The Days by Dan Brotzel

Every day counts when you’re chasing love, life, and a little bit of madness…

Luke Milvaine is a drifting 30-something stuck in a dead-end job with an even deader love life. Then the sudden death of a school friend leaves him with a cockapoo puppy and a bizarre challenge to celebrate a different fake holiday every day for a year.

Shower With a Friend Day, Talk Like Shakespeare Day, National Burger Day…

What starts as a ridiculous stunt becomes a life-changing journey filled with strange encounters, surprising friendships, and the unexpected realisation that love might be right under his nose. With humour, heart, and a dash of absurdity, Luke discovers that sometimes, the biggest adventure is learning to appreciate the little things and rethink what – and who – truly matters.

Thank You for the Days is a humorous, heartfelt journey about finding meaning in the mundane and learning to live with purpose.

My Review

I really enjoyed this book and the way in which the relationships gradually unfolded. Luke Milvaine is in his thirties, he hasn’t seen his dad for years because he’s flying around the world on business, his mum died a few years ago and he lives in a flat share with Dom in the basement of his stepdad’s house. His young half brother Milo and half-sister Grace live there too along with inherited cockapoo Ziggy. Luke is in love with Yasmine (the One) even though they have only met once.

Luke works as a content creator at a somewhat dysfunctional company with Holly (she’s lovely), Muriel (she’s on the spectrum though of what I’m not sure), bosses father and daughter Greg and Phaedra, who are always at loggerheads, and a group of assorted misfits. He really wants to ‘escape’.

Luke’s life at this point seems boring and pointless, and he needs something to focus on, other than his annoying obsession with Yasmine (the One). You’re not fifteen Luke. It wasn’t even a seven-day holiday romance in Benidorm. He needs a challenge. So that’s when he begins his life-changing year of celebrating a different fake (actually they are not all fake – there really is a Talk-Like-A-Pirate-Day) holiday every day for a year, for charity. He’s also going to publish a blog, recording his escapades.

The book is also very educational. Thank you to the author for telling me about the origin of the Poinsettia (I have two on the go at the moment) even if I don’t believe it and also for teaching me how to spell Poinsettia – ie putting the second ‘i’ in the right place, I think. Apologies to Mrs Hart but I hate fig rolls. What’s wrong with a chocolate hob nob? And thank you for introducing me to so many useless special days. I will definitely be avoiding the gimp day, the roller-coaster day (I’m with Luke on that one) and the stand up comedy day.

But if I was doing the challenge, I quite fancy these:
June 26th is National Cream Tea Day, easy peasy.
July 7th is World Chocolate Day. You know what to do.
August 18th is National Bad Poetry Day. For many that’s every day.
And October 26th is Worldwide Howl at the Moon Night. Luke may have done this one – I can’t remember. I could go on – don’t worry I won’t.

Many thanks to the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Dan Brotzel describes himself as a “funny-sad author” and writer of novels, short stories, articles and other motley bits of content. The author of Hotel du Jack, a collection of short stories, and The Wolf in the Woods, a novel, he also co-wrote the brilliantly funny Work in Progress – a “novel-in emails” from award-winning publishers, Unbound. He lives in suburban north London with his partner and three children.