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Ugh. If you want to read what annoyed me about this one, I've ranted about the insufferable characters, surface level themes, and lack of action over on Goodreads.

TLDR: read Flesh instead

⭐️⭐️

After moving his daughter to college, instead of returning to the now empty nest of him and his wife Amy, Tom continues driving. All across the US, visiting friends and relatives and thinking a lot. He‘s your typical white 50+ male and that makes the book a bit predictable, yet I enjoyed spending time with Tom and his akward relationships.

Thanks for sharing this book with me Helen!

📸 Magome, Japan

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White US male has mild midlife crisis and takes a roadtrip whilst re-evaluating his life and thinking a LOT about basketball. Everything is so mundane and unexceptional, it is both realistic and dreary. Very readable and I enjoyed all but the technical basketball talk. This is so American I would expect it to be a Pulitzer candidate (except Greer already won with a funnier version), but I am surprised to see it on the #Booker shortlist. Soft pick.

Tom promised that he would divorce his wife as soon as their youngest left for college after finding out about her affair. He drops off Miri at her dorm and just keeps driving.

This was an interesting book because the ending gives you a lot to think about. It takes a while to find the interesting parts, because not a lot of interesting things happen in the story, but at the end I felt that I was following someone's real life.

3.5⭐️

Middle-aged middle-class man takes a midlife-crisis road trip. I‘m being snarky; this is a sweet book with an engaging narrative voice, and sums up well the uncertainties of this time of life from the male perspective. However re the Booker shortlisting, this one doesn‘t quite get there for me - SURELY the midlife-road-trip-crisis novel of the year must be All Fours? I am intrigued and puzzled as to why this would be chosen over that👇

12-3 Sep 25 (audiobook)
#Bookerlonglist2025 10
Having dropped his youngest off to college, Tom makes good on his resolution 12 years ago to leave his wife after she had an affair.
I related to many of the questions facing Tom as my oldest nears the end of her schooling, although fortunately not in relation to my marriage.
Not a book I would ordinarily read and I would not expect it to make the shortlist, but I nevertheless enjoyed it.

My 10th #Booker is an American roadway novel. Tom is dealing with, or not dealing with, male uncertainty. He is confronting his own promise - to leave his wife once his youngest child reaches 18 because she had an affair twelve years prior. (The title is a play on the marriage vows.)

I've kept thinking about this book. Initially I felt it didn't do enough, but slowly I came to realize how well it does what it intended.
#Booker2025

3⭐️ Wow, finally … a recently released book that I didn‘t bail on 👏 I didn‘t dislike it, but it didn‘t surprise me or leave a lasting impression.

Starting book ten on the #Booker Prize longlist.
#Booker2025