In her cheerful debut memoir, My What If Year, Alisha Fernandez Miranda documents a year of exploring creative work while on a career break from her consultancy CEO role. Miranda, a Cuban American from Miami, had relocated to London. By early 2020, she was eager to avoid stagnation and take risks by moving into new arenas. She'd long been obsessed with musicals and was lucky to have a friend whose father was a theater writer for Broadway. Her time with Assassins and Flying over Sunset mostly amounted to refilling water jugs and filing invoices, yet it granted behind-the-scenes access to rehearsals, "the dreamiest two and a half weeks of my life."
When this first of four unpaid internships was cut short by Covid-19, her husband and two children had retreated to their Isle of Skye vacation home, where she homeschooled their twins and apprenticed at Retroglow, a friend's fitness company. Exercise classes adapted to lockdowns and went virtual; Miranda handled the social media promotion. Next up was helping a contemporary art dealer at Christie's in London, followed by an internship at Scotland's exclusive Kinloch Lodge. Miranda worked in the restaurant and behind the front desk, exhausting toil that made her, a perfectionist, feel like a klutz.
Miranda self-deprecatingly recounts the mishaps of her interning year, careful to recognize the privilege that allowed "a small hiatus from my real life." This self-help memoir, ideal for readers of Gretchen Rubin and Helen Russell, suggests reclaiming a beginner's mind--a humbling, invigorating experience. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck