Welcome to Litsy!

Gosh, very different to my expectations and very insightful into menopause and mid life and families. I think it's well written and the plot, as such, is inclusive of necessary backstory.
Nicely done!

An amazing portrait of womanhood in middle age in a beautifully mundane and relatable life.

Finishing up this slim but powerful novel recommended by @CBee and I‘ve been pondering how to articulate my feelings about it. Just a few pages before the end I came to this poignant, eloquent passage that I felt sums up [one of] the book‘s themes. I appreciate how well Newman‘s writing captures the feelings of family life in middle age, so that even though the details of my marriage & family are quite different than Rocky‘s, I can relate.

2 things:

1) I love this book
2) My husband bought me a pillow for the bath that I was very skeptical about for Christmas and now can‘t live without. If you, like me, are a chronic bath reader, treat yourself. It‘s worth it.

Enjoying this short book about a woman ‘sandwiched‘ between her grown children & her parents. A great read with great characters, family secrets, & family dynamics.
I can‘t remember which Litten love this book and triggered me to read it, but thank you!
#BlameItOnLitsy

This book is funny at the start especially for those of us truly living the sandwich generation experience (and menopause)But this book wrecked me in the end. It‘s good but proceed with caution.

It was a fantastic reading year!

Favorites: Sandwich, In the Weeds, Ask Not, From Here to the Great Unknown, Migrations

The few stats I like to track:
library books — 119
nonfiction — 73
five star reads — 26

I have a “best of 2024” shelf on goodreads if you want to take a look. If we‘re not already connected, I‘m britt_brooke there, too. 🩷🩷

Maybe love is grief imploding. Or maybe it‘s love expanding. I don‘t know. I just know you can‘t create loss to preempt loss because it doesn‘t work that way. So you might as well love as much as you can. And as recklessly. Like it‘s your last resort, because it is 👙⛱️🦞

⭐️⭐️/5
Decided to take a break from Christmas reads and thrillers…went with this one but it just wasn‘t for me, just OK🤷🏼‍♀️

Spent most of today reading this on the sunny deck (sun has gone now!) Felt like being on holiday myself. Newman writes in a conversational style that is easy to read and i felt a lot of similarities (age, an adult child). So this telling of a family vacation where she is sandwiched btw one generation and the next while going through menopause was a delight. It also delves into some serious stuff so potential for a few shed tears here too.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A family visits their favorite Cape Cod cottage where they‘ve amassed so many memories. The kids are now grown, yet still young. Their interactions are relatable, sweet, brutally honest, and often funny. But there are secrets, too; accidental and intentional. The idea of preemptive grief hit home. Being a human is hard. Identifying with others is paramount. It‘s a quick read, but packed with a ton of heart. One of my best of 2024!

I really enjoyed this novel - a great setting of Cape Cod, well developed characters and the messiness of life. Rocky is menopausal and sandwiched between her adult children and aging parents. The story reminded me of others by Ann Patchett and Elizabeth Strout.

Just ok for me. I enjoyed the nostalgic aspects of having grown kids. But the menopause stuff was a bit much for me

A short and sweet #audiobook worth checking out.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I laughed. I could relate. It was a quick read and one that made me only want to read read read! Love books that I can‘t put down, that suck me in, that have characters who are enraging and enraged, inconsistent and witty. This book is not about sandwiches the food - though a few are described. This is not all about the Cape Cod town of Sandwich Mass - though it provides the setting. This is about a menopausal woman navigating life between👇

Starting this one because it just came off a many week library hold; comes highly recommended.

Reuben Sandwiches are my favorite with balanced and generous proportions of melty Swiss, sauerkraut, and sauce. MUST be on marbled rye. You?

And, yes, I have stood on this pier of Sandwich MA though I doubt it was at sunset time. But this matches my other post for today. My favorite place on Cape Cod is Pocasset. No real reason other than 👇

Short and sweet and I loved it. If you are or were or could have been a mother this read is for you. Beach week with the family…this is a great quick read.

#daysdevotedto #sandwich

I read this and very much identified with a lot of the emotions!

@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Absolute true love for this book! I have laughed so hard I‘ve cried over and over while reading this and my heart has broken too many times. It‘s an absolute gem to read right now when women‘s reproductive rights are being taken away from them. Despite the laughter ( because if you can‘t laugh, you‘ll cry) there is a heavy message underlaying this story about what a woman bears in this life as a daughter, sister, wife, mother

#DaysDevotedTo #Sandwich #TBR

I started this last night, really late for me, at 10 pm. The day got away from me and I was so tired I only managed 2 chapters. I was laughing so hard I was crying and then I didn‘t want to go to sleep. It may be finished today. I love peanut M&M‘s although I didn‘t think of them as a kids candy, they are more a I need to survive this day strategy

I‘m at the stage in my life where I can relate to this book…aging parents, kids growing up, hormonal changes. I listened to it over audio & was a quick listen. For the most part I liked it, some parts irked me. I‘m adding a trigger warning since abortion is discussed a few times in the book.

I‘m trying so hard, but I‘m finding myself really pushing to stay with this one. Read because it‘s small and may be worth the ending or bail?

A 54 year old woman, Rocky, returns with her husband and adult children to the same vacation spot they have visited for over 25 years. While at the beach, Rocky wanders through a series of old memories, family traditions, ponderings of the past, and questions about the future. She tackles all aspects of womanhood—menopause, parenting, misogyny, childbirth, marriage, miscarriage, aging parents, sex. A lovely book with honesty, warmth, and humor.

Loved it. Quick read. Nothing much happens but I like that in a story.

Next up on kindle . . . I've seen this crop up with good reviews.

The best beach read is set at the beach. This book reminded me of the Dutch House with how warm the writing was to read. It‘s a great story about a family growing, bending but never breaking. It tells the story of a life well lived via a lot of flashbacks and memories - both good and bad.

This is NOT my usual - I am definitely more of a plot-driven reader, and this is really a character study. And while the MC is a bit much at times, she still felt real. I appreciate this look how my life might be in just a few years- children grown, menopause in full gear, aging parents. This was quite atmospheric too, with the setting being a week long family vacation at the beach. I could feel that.

Newman certainly writes protagonists who are a lot. At first Rocky seemed like she might be a bit too much for me but like everyone else in her life, I eventually fell under her spell. I had a good time spending a week on vacation with her and her out of the nest children, aging parents, and beleaguered husband. This book had moments where I was so annoyed I thought I would bail and moments that really touched me. Overall a light pick.

August favorite! But James beat it ♥️ Plus I had to add Clare Pooley‘s book as a bonus, it was just amazing and hilarious ♥️♥️ #readingbracket2024 @CSeydel

A book of family, a week on Cape Cod, loss, joy, and processing a little or bit of everything. I love that there‘s a 50 something protagonist. I loved that it takes place in a week on the Cape. I love that there‘s some family genealogy. I love that some of the less central storylines felt so central to understanding the family. I loved that it‘s a shorter book (pssst, agents… shorter books can be successful!).

Well, I might just be speechless. I feel so seen, so cherished, so important. It‘s almost as if she jumped right into my brain and pulled out parts of the main character. I predict a days long book hangover ♥️♥️♥️♥️

“Here's the thing about menopause, though, that I don't entirely understand. We'll exchange a few words like this? A seemingly slight disagreement? Only then rage fizzes up inside my rib cage. It burns and unspools, as berserk and sulfuric as those black-snake fireworks from childhood: one tiny pellet, with seemingly infinite potential to create dark matter-dark matter that's kind of like a magic serpent and kind of like a giant ash turd.”

A pretty perfect summer novel. I felt like I was on vacation with this clan.

@BkClubCare commented that Sandwich is the IT book right now on my #bookspin list, and sure enough, it was chosen!

How It Works Out arrived yesterday as one of a bunch of #CampLitsy24 longlist books I‘ve picked up recently.

As you can see, my up-next shelf is bursting at the seams plus I have 10 library books out! 🤯 I‘ve lost it…🤣

Thanks for continuing this fun challenge, Sarah. 💜💜

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I definitely could relate to this. But it didn‘t live up to the hype. Quick easy read though.

Looks like a fun read!

What a beautiful novel of a week at the summer cottage this family has visited for many years. It centers around Rocky and her husband, parents and adult children. It is a novel of all the feels of family life, raising kids, aging and watching parents as they decline. So well done.

54 year old Rocky arrives at the annual week long vacation at the Cape Cod beach house. Her children are grown her parents are elderly and her relationship with her husband is up and down. But they‘re all there that week, and she loves them all fiercely. In fact this book seems like a love letter to all of them, interspersed with loads of anxiety. I laughed out loud once, but mostly found it repetitious.

This page cracked me up!

I‘ve been going back and forth on how to rate this all day. On one hand the main character was just so much and everyone just seemed to accept that. It didn‘t seem real to me. On the other hand I read this while on vacation in New England with my kids and my parents and that part seemed REAL. In a way it reminded me of the #CampLitsy book All Fours- I‘m ecstatic to see women around my age in books, but yikes do they have to be so over the top?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I thought this was a wonderful summer read that nailed the everything-ness of life. I loved hearing from a female character in her fifties. Rocky‘s voice was compelling and memorable, equally funny and piercing. I was an extra guest on this family beach vacation, along for the ride for every emotion, memory, and meal.

I‘m conflicted, I found myself laughing, reading lines to friends, & getting caught up in the family dynamics. I identified w/ someone caught in the middle of aging parents & raising children, though mine are younger. But the kids felt 1 dimensional. The main character is ripe w/ conflicting emotions & big feelings but her adult kids feel like cookie cutter examples of what parents wish they had. It‘s not their story but it kept me from loving it.

This book had me laughing out loud THREE times while reading in bed last night. i even had to read an excerpt to my lit-allergic husband. I feel this woman to my core. Menopausal women, unite! 💪🏻😂 (and whenever Ann Patchett gives it a nod, I‘m in.)

I loved Catherine‘s last book, dove into this one and loved it too. The cover art of this book depicts the story perfectly as Rocky looks fondly at her life through a watercolor lense as she enters menopause, becomes an empty nester and witnesses her husband age more gracefully than she. It‘s also a story about a woman‘s right to choose and even a woman‘s right to have regrets, even though she made what she knew was the right choice for the time.

“You could decide to be happy”. That‘s what a friend says to the narrator of the book, a woman in the midst of menopause and with an empty nest after her children have left home.
In the book they are holidaying in Cape Cod for a week. All of them. They are such a happy family, she has it all, yet she can‘t stop thinking, fearing, feeling angry, etc. I agree with her friend and wish she would decide to enjoy all she had. A light pick.

This one is hard to rate, or explain why I am rating it like I am, even to myself. On the one hand, the characters bother me. Even the nickname of the protagonist bothers me. Their banter annoys me. But then there is the relatable humanness during menopause that makes me forgive it all.

#weeklyforecast 27/24

I am reading James for #CampLitsy24 (I hated Huckleberry Finn long ago and won‘t reread it) and enjoying it. Next will be Sandwich - thanks to @TrishB

Maybe there‘ll be a bit of time left for some John Marrs.

#bookhaul from our York meet-up. I went with the intention of buying Sandwich (hubby thought that was hilarious - that I intended to buy just *one* book!) and spotted this ARC in the Amnesty charity shop. Definitely need to go back there again as Moon Road and Evenings & Weekends were also ARCs, for just Qc each.

Tangled Vines is the Murdaugh murders story, and I‘m seeing the Redemption author speak at a Crime Festival in a few weeks‘ time.