so-soI have mixed feelings about this one! The parts of the book not centered around the bar were great, but I got very bored with the bar and its cast of characters. And none of them were memorable to me, minus Uncle Charlie. By the end, I truly didn‘t know who was who. Or care. And the epilogue was surprising, in a really sad way. (22)
⭐️: 3/5
so-soThis is a hard one to sum up - it‘s about a marriage that is falling apart after the individual‘s dreams don‘t work out the way they hoped. The characters are well drawn, but it took so long for the book to get moving. I had to switch from print to audio to keep me reading in time for our book group discussion. #wickedwords : bet, school
so-soDeWitt's debut was grim and grotty.
If you like books where people take lots of drugs and alcohol and poop themselves - and you've already read Trainspotting - then this might be for you, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.
Reasonable writing, but no redeemable characters and written in the second person, which should never be attempted.
Read his other stuff instead.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Rae's number one rule of how not to be pretentious when writing a novel is:
NEVER use the second person!
Someone should probably also tell Rae that referring to oneself in the third person can be just as annoying 🤣🤣
pickI enjoyed this intimate look at the “peak of the storm“ of a couple's marriage set within the backdrop of an actual winter storm. It definitely has the atmosphere of time stopping a chance to pause and reflect, which they do with multiple flashbacks. I didnt mind the shifting in POV especially because the narrators changed for the audio. I liked and understood most of the subplots but maybe not Tripp's?
pickOkay, I liked this book overall. I liked the chopping and changing between Jess and Mal, and how it biased whom I had empathy or sympathy with. But the subplots were odd. I'm not sure they were really necessary?
Good ending too.
I missed a full Bingo by about 75 pages. 😬 There's always this month!
pickThis story was so relatable to me. Like Jess, I'm a lawyer in my early 40s. We even have the same maiden name! And though my issue wasn't necessarily infertility, my husband and I wanted kids but it didn't happen for us for other reasons, and we both had to process that and grieve the what could have beens in our own way and time, and that puts a strain on a marriage. Keane writes beautiful novels with such realistically flawed characters.
I‘m posting one book a day from my massive collection. No description, no reason for why I want to read it (some I‘ve had so long I don‘t even remember why!). Feel free to join in!
#ABookADay2024
