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Ratings & Reviews for

Sandwich

Catherine Newman

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5 stars

8,727 (27%)

4 stars

11,554 (35%)

3 stars

8,246 (25%)

2 stars

2,735 (8%)

1 star

955 (2%)

Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,476 reviews

Brady Lockerby

118 reviews75.9k followers

July 3, 2024

Loved this one 🥹 “This is a book about love and change and loss, all packed into an annual family week on Cape Code. And it’s a total delight.”
I don’t know if this one will be for everyone, the writing is different than anything I’ve read before, but I adored it

Stacy B

19 reviews2 followers

June 22, 2024

I am the exact target audience for this book. I’m 54 yr old menopausal woman with two grown children who spends lots of time in Sandwich Ma! But this book just did not do it for me. I was annoyed at the places in Sandwich were completely fictional (not that real names of places needed to be used but it’s what makes it fun for locals to read and they did not describe places that actually exist)and a HUGE pet peeve is the audio narrator (who did do a fantastic job otherwise) pronounced Barnstable wrong (it’s more like ‘barn stibel’ not barn STABLE, like horse barn) and if I were the author I would demand that be fixed!
But besides those personal pet peeves, I just found the relationships with her children a little TOO open and there were also comments made that were really over the top, like for shock value, and I am far from a pearl clutcher, but a lot of these seemed really unnecessarily crude.
As for Rocky, the main character, I will say she made me thankful my menopause experience isn’t as bad as hers. She is one angry angry woman on the verge of exploding at any and all times. I almost want to have my husband read it so he knows how lucky he is lol This woman’s husband is a friggen saint. To go with the flow as much as he does.
And although I, as well as many moms, get sentimental about their kids and missing the younger days, she really goes over the top almost to point where it’s creepy.
I did enjoy the ending and it put a lump in my throat but overall, it just didn’t hit the mark for me as a fun beach read.

Sujoya - theoverbookedbibliophile (recovering from an arm injury; on a short review-writing break)

743 reviews2,624 followers

June 23, 2024

Sandwich by Catherine Newman follows fifty-four-year-old Rachel or “Rocky” as is called by those close to her, over the course of her annual family trip to Cape Cod. We meet her husband Nick, her adult children – daughter Willa, son Jamie and his girlfriend Maya and her elderly parents also join them for a few days in their rental cottage. There is a lot to manage and Rocky is the middle of it all. We follow her as she navigates the demands of her family, her own struggles with bouts of melancholy and mood swings (not to mention the hot flashes) brought on by menopause and is often overwhelmed by memories of the years gone by – some happy and some not so much.

The narrative is presented from Rocky’s first-person PoV and spans a week in the characters’ lives, with past events being shared as flashbacks as present-day events evoke nostalgia and Rocky is reminded of past events. The pacing is on the slower side, which suits the nature of the story. This is a story about what it means to be a family-the shifting dynamics within, navigating the ups and downs, growing together and giving each other space for individual growth, making memories, evolving, holding on and learning to let go. The author addresses several sensitive topics, including parenting, sexuality, menopause,motherhood, miscarriage,marriage, aging, family secrets, grief, sacrifice and much more with maturity and insight.

Beautiful prose, relatable characters and realistic situations, plenty of love, laughter and food (and of course, sandwiches) as well as tears and frustrations, and some truly heartfelt conversations and poignant moments make for a quiet yet incredibly thought-provoking read!

Many thanks to Harper for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. This novel was published on June 18, 2024.

Connect with me! ✏ Instagram ✏ My Blog ✏ The StoryGraph

netgalley-arc

Linda Smith

631 reviews15 followers

August 11, 2024

This book was annoying.

Done with TV

62 reviews1 follower

June 26, 2024

So boring. No plot. Ranty. Excessively political. Just liberal woke nonsense for no reason. I’m very pro-choice but I’m not interested in reading anymore books that are just someone’s social justice warrior project. I’m also done with books where women are written as complete idiots but miraculously they are so smart in their career but don’t have the good sense to get through 5 minute of real life.

Jude (HeyJudeReads) Fricano

516 reviews88 followers

July 1, 2024

"And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same. To say, I understand how hard it is to be a parent, a kid." Catherine Newman, Sandwich

I laughed, I cried and I laughed some more. Family, parenting, love, Cape Cod and the underestimated smell of being on the beach that brings both clarity and relaxation. Sandwich is a wonderful representation of how families live - love - disagree and how they endure. Marriages, aging parents, children who grow to find their own love and the complicated dance of a marriage between two that ebbs and flows over the course of several decades. There is no sweeter story than that of family - and with that comes all the heartaches and tribulations - and culminates with love.

Erin Maggart

6 reviews2 followers

June 28, 2024

I know this got a lot of rave reviews and I know I'm in the minority, but I was so disappointed by this book. I didn't feel the book had much substance nor was it original, and I really don't get reviews saying it's witty. I guess I grew up in a home too dysfunctional to allow me to ignore my willing suspension of disbelief and think there exists such perfect families. It annoyed me. There's no real conflict. When the Mom doesn't want to deal with something she blurts out that she's having hot flashes and/or is menopausal. It was trite. Maybe she could have seen a doctor and tried to deal with her hormonal issues in some way rather than relying on making sandwiches to make her perfect life THE most perfect it could be. I rarely write reviews because I'd rather move onto my next read and, with the quantity of books I read, I feel my time could be better spent not giving my opinion on something everyone else has already given their opinion on. For once, I felt like I needed to justify my review since this has been touted as one of the best new reads. I've never had a perfect life and reading about people that do was really f'n boring to me. The only upside was that this was really short, so I didn't waste much time. And, I got it from the library, so I only wasted time but no money. In case the one-star review isn't indicative enough, I hated this book.

Dee - delighting in the Desert :)

417 reviews83 followers

July 31, 2024

3.5 stars, rounded up for the humor. A week in the life of an extended, multi-gen family as told by Rocky, a mid-fifties "empty nester" woman with a lot of issues. I liked, but didn't love this one - there was a lot I did connect to, I've been through the change & am caring for my Mom and I, like many, many women, do have a reproductive history with some loss & a few regrets. But this was a tad slow & just too much of the FMC's obsessive thoughts for my personal taste. It does make some good points, so perhaps others will get more from it than I did. That said, as a "Childless cat lady", I really, really loved "Chicken", the family cat, and how various family members all gave him a voice! 😻😻😹 meow!

2024 bookclub

Brandice

1,061 reviews

August 12, 2024

Sandwich is a slice of life novel, following Rocky and her family on their annual week-long summer vacation in Cape Cod. Her two children are now young adults, her parents are aging, and her husband remains a steady presence in her life throughout their highs and lows. ⁣
⁣
Overall, I enjoyed this story which has themes of family, motherhood, and love. It explores a variety of relationships. This isn’t a long book and the conversation style was easy, even when more substantial topics were involved. ⁣
⁣
Sandwich is set during a week of vacation but there are also many flashbacks, providing more insight into Rocky as a character. All of the characters felt realistic, and while I understood Rocky was coming to terms with this new stage of her life, she was too angsty for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Books for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Linda (Lily) Raiti

465 reviews73 followers

June 25, 2024

Ahh, give me a story about a 50 year old woman, throw in menopause (identifiable & relatable), add poetic, entertaining, atmospheric writing and we have the perfect literary sandwich combo, worthy of gobbling up.

Sandwiched between generations - her now adult children and her loveable, aging parents, Rachel, aka Rocky takes us on a journey of a family annual week holiday at Cape Cod. There is self growth, passage, grief, relationships, family joy, loss, secrets and revelations to be had.

Written with incredibly clever humour but also with sweet, tender-heartedness. Rockys internal monologue curates memories from her own childhood, her marriage (early on and now) and raising her “perfect and beautiful” children.

It’s rare a book can make me laugh out loud and weep in equal measures as Sandwich did. Her candid vag and lady bits talk - told both from child bearing to her now old saggy aging one had me literally cackling - nearly all from my own similar experiences.

The raw and visceral emotion Newman brings to the narrative is written with unabashed vulnerability and introspection, seemingly deliberately and yet intricately observed.

“ Nick immediately pulls off his Red Sox T-shirt and Red Sox cap and asks Willa if she wants to swim. ‘Nah.’ She says. ‘I’m lazy. I’m just going to lay in the sun for a while.’ Nick catches my eye because lay instead of lie, but we don’t say anything because we’re trying not to be colonialist grammar-police fucktrumpets or what ever it is Willa has accused us of being.”

5 freaking stars 🌟

🤩 Huge thanks to the wonderful team @penguinbooksaus @catherinenewman for this absolute winner! 💌

Gloria

11 reviews

June 27, 2024

Might be the Worst Book I’ve Read this Year ( And I Read About 5/week)

Reading this was painful, I had to force myself to finish. Mostly a monologue about one woman’s struggle with her feminine body; abortion, depression, menopause, etc. There really is no generational sandwich, other than the one she creates in her head. Her children are of age and live independently, her parents are elderly but live independently. Her husband should be given a hero award for sticking with her. I can think of nothing positive to say about this book other than I finished it.

Kelly (and the Book Boar)

2,664 reviews9,094 followers

August 7, 2024

I spend soooooo much time in my reviews declaring “while I wasn’t the target demographic for this one” or “go read reviews by people who actually can relate to this plot/these characters” but I’m here to tell you THIS. STORY. WAS. WRITTEN. FOR. MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Rocky (Rachel, but everyone calls her Rocky), Nick, the kids Willa and James (and James’ long-time girlfriend Maya), and eventually Rocky’s parents Mort and Alice are spending their yearly week at a rental house on Cape Cod. This annual tradition has been going on since the kids were just wee little babies. They’ll eat lobster, get their suntan on while swimming in the Atlantic and looking for hermit crabs, they’ll attend the annual library sale, get ice cream in town – you know, all the typical touristy type things. All while Rocky is in the throws of menopause.

I am a true believer that everyone should read whatever book synopsis, title or even cover (I mean, look at that house!) strikes their fancy. And lord knows I got the FOMO real bad so I read tons of things that I really should have just left on the library shelves. But this might be a case where you end up with a “meh” reaction at best or might actively dislike Rocky if you aren’t experiencing the “joys” of what she’s going through . . . .

“there are still other manifestations that you have never gotten a single rotten whiff of until they’re happening specifically to you. Like the fact that your vagina sweats in the night. It perspires! This same vagina that so stubbornly refuses to produce any other type of moisture that when your gynecologist’s nurse asks if you’re sexually active, you laugh, shrug, make a so-so sign with your hand. “I’m going to put yes for that,” she says, cheerfully. “Some active volcanoes haven’t erupted in fifty years!” Your gums recede. You are covered in weird growths, as if a toddler has gotten a sheet of mole stickers and stuck them all over your breasts and armpits. Everything needs to be biopsied, except for the one under-boob skin tag that has actual tentacles, like an octopus; this is apparently so normal that the mammogram person barely looks when you show it to her—“That’s totally fine!”—but then she puts a festive little donut sticker over it so the radiologist won’t mistake it for a tumor. You have so many nipple hairs and most of them are white now. And your period does a kind of horror-movie swan song as if it is finally realizing its Freddie Krueger aspirations.

As a gal who is willing to practically slit my husband’s throat for daring to ask questions like “why do you have all that underboob sweat????” when we’ve only taken a five minute car ride (in frigid air conditioning, no less) to go get cat litter and a rotisserie chicken from Sam’s Club, Rocky was my type of butthole and now she’s my new best friend.

Allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the Stars

cluck-cluck-mothafucka house-cover-auto-request i-read-it-right

Debbie

383 reviews86 followers

July 4, 2024

This book is getting a lot of attention and many five star reviews, so I had high hopes going into this story.

I was expecting a well rounded story about a family’s annual vacation to Cape Cod and a touching look at the interactions between the members and generations of this family. Unfortunately, it concentrated more on the topic of women’s reproductive health: pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, and menopause.

It had some lighter moments, but I felt that the MC was way too annoying and narcissistic (even her family said she was).

Overall, I liked it. I just didn’t love it and would hesitate to recommend it.

Belle

577 reviews53 followers

June 19, 2024

Here, most likely is the best book of my reading year.

I feel heard and validated. It’s all I need.

Marriage, Motherhood, Menopause in all the wonder and horribleness.

*be warned that there is a lot of vag humor going down in these pages.

*be warned there is a smidgen or even a smattering of left leaning political agendizing going down in these pages and it centers around abortion. If that’s gonna make you mad, sad or otherwise spoil your day just leave this one on the shelf.

AS FOR ME, I adored this whole beautiful everything.

2024-top-10

Wendy

149 reviews106 followers

June 19, 2024

If you’re looking for a light, sweet, beachy read, as the cover of this book would infer, move along because this isn’t it.

This book, clocking in at a mere 240 pp, manages to smother you with miscarriages, abortion, grandparents killed by Nazis, a super woke obnoxious daughter, and way over here in 2024 there is even a mention of Covid and a request to wear a mask. It even goes as far as to mention Sandy Hook. Depressed yet? No? Ok, how about incessant talk of menopause?

I guess I wasn’t the right audience. Adding a star for the beautiful cover, as misleading as it was. And there were a couple of cute lines. All in all, I was underwhelmed.

Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader

2,429 reviews31.6k followers

August 27, 2024

Catherine Newman’s We All Want Impossible Things was one of my favorite books of 2023, and just as soon as I saw Sandwich hit @goodreads, with its early blank cover, I added it to my TBR and began stalking its release, and here it is!

How does Catherine Newman pack so much into this slim story? The emotion… the HUMOR… I read this one in a couple of quick sittings and shared many anecdotes with my mom that had her chuckling, too. Life is so much easier when you can find the humor in the mundane, especially when you can laugh at yourself, which Newman conveys so well though the insights of her characters.

Rocky is the star of the novel, and she’s perfectly imperfect. If you’ve ever had a single hot flash, you can understand some of her emotions, and if you’ve ever made a hard choice you may have second guessed for years, you will feel seen by Rocky’s story, too.

The story takes place during a week spent at the beach together, following a family tradition held for years. The same house, the same family members with an addition or two, the same big love, and also the secrets lingering just below the surface.

I’m most grateful for a story of someone meandering through midlife the best she can, with real struggles, lots of emotion, and shifting dynamics; all balanced with characters who have good hearts, who feel like real people, and who make it through, with the help of each other, even when it’s very, very hard.

Sandwich is what I call the perfect read. It has everything I want in a story and delivered every ounce of what I hoped it would be. I sent Catherine Newman a DM while reading and asked if she could please write all the books. 😬 Love love love. A favorite this year.

Thank you, Judith @booksoldenburg, for the wonderful buddy read.

I received a gifted copy.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

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Stephanie (aka WW)

881 reviews20 followers

February 23, 2024

(3.5 stars) I could so relate to the narrator in this book. Rocky (short for Rachel) is caught between her aging parents, who are having health issues, and her adult children, who are facing major life events (including sexuality issues). Dealing with all of this, while herself going through menopause, leaves Rocky clinging to her good sense of humor for sanity.

Rocky’s family gets together annually at the beach in Cape Cod, in a beach house that is getting older along with everything/everyone else. Food is a central theme – Rocky makes delicious-sounding sandwiches for the beach and cooks up fabulous-sounding dinners. I’m pretty sure that the title, Sandwich, refers to the small town in Massachusetts, but it would also work for sandwiches, the food, and the fact that Rocky is sandwiched between her children and her parents. I enjoyed the naturally-flowing banter between the family members and could appreciate their reactions to the issues that arise throughout the week of vacation. There were certain hot topics that were dealt with that may turn some off (e.g., abortion), but I, personally, saw my views reflected back at me. This is a book for readers who enjoy quiet stories and witty banter. It should work particularly well for those in their 50s and 60s.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC.

Deborah

25 reviews6 followers

June 24, 2024

It’s not clear who this book is for. It’s certainly not for women with grown children because it will give you an anxiety disorder if you don’t have one. I lost count of how many times the women said “I’m the worst.” I’m pretty sure one of them was a man living as a trans gay woman. It felt like misogyny thinly disguised as humor. Only it did not make me laugh. It was cringy. The men are all cluelessly floating through life bothered by nothing. They even said “men have reason and math in place of where feelings would be.” Really, what year do you live in? The main character is full of angst and self-loathing and self-absorption. Her family tells her she’s a narcissist a few times and she laughs. She should listen. And the family is weirdly enmeshed. They eat every meal practically sitting on top of each other and do everything together. It’s not a book for men obviously since they are minor players. And it’s not for young adults because they are treated like children. It’s not a good tale for anyone that I can tell. It’s one very neurotic person who has written a book for herself to vent I guess.

JennyLG

58 reviews

August 23, 2024

Just no.

There is a difference between taking artistic license and then there is just flat out distasteful. This is the latter for so many reasons. I don’t even know where to begin.

Between the non-traditional dialogue writing style and vivid descriptions of the morning after pill, miscarriage of her child in the ocean, abortions (picking up blood clots in the toilet and all), I am just flabbergasted. Not to mention the Oedipal relationships with her kids. I don’t understand the love for this book whatsoever.

I would give this book zero stars if I could. Worst book that I have read in a very long time.

This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.

Stacy40pages

1,710 reviews238 followers

January 6, 2024

Sandwich by Catherine Newman. Thanks to @harperbooks for the gifted Arc ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rocky has always looked forward to her family’s vacation at Cape Cod. This year her children are adults, but still young enough to need her, and her parents are getting older but healthy. She wants to value every moment of the vacation, but all families have secrets and a past.

Oh wow did I love this book. The characters are so perfectly imperfect, and I loved them all. I felt for Rocky and saw myself in her in ten years. This was really just the perfect read; full of love, tragedy, growth, a normal and imperfect marriage, and secrets. I cried at the end and this will be a difficult one to stop thinking about. Catherine Newnan is definitely a favorite author of mine after this and We All Want Impossible Things.

“What exactly are we doing here? Why do we love everyone so recklessly and then break our own hearts? And they don’t even break. They just swell, impossibly, with more love.”

Sandwich comes out 6/18.

Janssen

1,709 reviews4,842 followers

Read

August 22, 2024

I 100% get that this book isn't for everyone (I got a message on Instagram when I shared that I was reading it that said, "Just finished this book. I loathed it. She's crazy, she's passed her crazy to her daughter. She's abusive to her husband. I kept reading because of the great reviews. Yuck.") but for me, it absolutely worked and I blew through it in a day.

2024

Melki

6,648 reviews2,504 followers

August 17, 2024

"This week is proving to be very revelatory," Willa says to me in the parking lot, and I say, "Isn't it!"

This lovable book had just the right mix of humor and pathos, life and death, sand and sun, and, yes, sandwiches.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for sharing.

family-based-fiction summer-afternoon

heather | booksbyheath

400 reviews363 followers

July 14, 2024

stunning beautiful perfect nothing will ever compare

Lisa Burgos

430 reviews26 followers

August 12, 2024

This fell short for me. After all the hype for the book, I was expecting more or maybe something different.

It's the story of a family's vacation told from the viewpoint of Rachel, the family's matriarch, who is sandwiched between her nearly grown kids, and her aging parents. Filled with what is to love & to be loved, the ways in which we know (and don't know) our parents, a bittersweet and nostalgic read that is filled with warmth, joy,and sadness.

Judy

1,326 reviews42 followers

June 24, 2024

Catherine Newman is a new author for me, but she's written quite a few books prior to this one. The description caught my interest, so I picked it up.

Description:
For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

My Thoughts:
It is funny how secrets kept eat away at you over time, but they always seem to come out in the end. This book is a celebration of family and the interrelationships that evolve and build over time. You can be so close and loving and yet feel alone at times. Rocky is central to this book and menopause has hit her really hard. Things culminate during the family vacation at the beach where they stay in the same place they always stayed each year as a family. The book is filled with love and the memories the family has accumulated. And yet Rocky has a secret that is tearing her apart. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes books about family or books about keeping secrets.

Thanks to Harper through Netgalley for an advance copy.

Violet

373 reviews103 followers

August 9, 2024

This was a fun + fast read.

Spanning one week on Cape Cod, Sandwich was relatable, funny, and touching. Rocky is a recent empty nester coming to terms with what her life currently looks like, while also giving us small glimpses of what lead her to this point in time. Two adult children, aging parents, an ever evolving relationship with her husband, hot flashes from Hell, and a secret that has left her guilt ridden for years.

I loved the past and present timelines & all the sarcasm and laughs. Rocky's relationships and level of communication with her husband and children were inspiring.

This is the perfect quick beachy read. 4 stars.

MonReads

65 reviews11 followers

Read

August 20, 2024

Not reviewing because I didn’t finish it. This book is highly sentimental, and, personally, I feel like I am nearly in the FMC’s journey at the moment. The book includes too much about child loss, growth and change of children, aging as a woman, etc. for this depressed mom (me) to read about. It all hits home too much. Some books are just too hard to read for personal reasons, and this is definitely that for me.

Molly Grimmius

729 reviews11 followers

June 24, 2024

On What should you read next summer guide and I read the previous book by this author and loved it though had some parts I didn’t like.
This is hard to rate…. This author is a brilliant writer and she absolutely nails writing about certain emotions and subjects so absolutely beautiful and I want to give her all the stars. For example, this book is set she the author is 50 and it’s their summer vacation to cape cod and she talks about all their summer vacations here and she talks so well about the layers and different stages they were in… and I have felt all those things.i loved how she writes about families and their dynamics… perfection…. 5 stars to those parts.

BUT
Her worldview and what she believes as portrayed through her characters is so so an opposite spectrum… compiling with all the correct labels and choices and rights and oh how she talked about abortion made me want to puke and how she talked about women and me. And oh her daughter …. So pointing out all that is not what you say and rights and rights and ugh. It was like she gave you this family that is doing all the accepting g and you could still see all the struggle and still not happy still not satisfied… still empty and loss because just getting those things you want doesn’t make it right or easier… there still is longing and need because you need Jesus… all this which was so much of the book gets one star… but I will say… I am glad I read it to just hear this very liberal accepting agenda and how it’s never enough… and to hear how they feel about things.

Would not recommend which sucks because some parts were perfection.

Kristel | Your Novel Ambitions

34 reviews14 followers

August 17, 2024

Menopausal musings, summer nostalgia, and anticipatory grief come together for one family’s traditional week-long vacation in Cape Cod. Through laughter and tears, Catherine Newman reminds us at every turn how to find intentional joy in the peaks and valleys of the midlife (sandwich) years.

girl-power literary-fiction

Rebecca

3,894 reviews3,232 followers

June 19, 2024

(3.5) Newman’s second novel for adults takes place during a week at Cape Cod, a popular Massachusetts beach resort. Rachel, nicknamed “Rocky,” is a fiftysomething mother to two young adults, Jamie and Willa. She and her husband Nick have been renting the same cottage for their family’s summer vacations for 20 years. Although Rocky narrates most of the novel in the first person, in the Prologue she paints the scene for the reader in the third person: “They’ve been coming here for so many years that there’s a watercolor wash over all of it now … pleasant, pastel memories of taffy, clam strips, and beachcombing.”

Also present are Maya, Jamie’s girlfriend; Rocky’s ageing parents; and Chicken the cat (can you imagine taking your cat on holiday?!). With such close quarters, it’s impossible to keep secrets. Over the week of merry eating and drinking, much swimming, and plenty of no-holds-barred conversations, some major drama emerges via both the oldies and the youngsters. And it’s not just present crises; the past is always with Rocky. Cape Cod has developed layers of emotional memories for her. She’s simultaneously nostalgic for her kids’ babyhood and delighted with the confident, intelligent grown-ups they’ve become. She’s grateful for the family she has, but also haunted by inherited trauma and pregnancy loss.

There couldn’t be more ideal reading for women in the so-called “sandwich generation” who have children growing towards independence as well as parents starting to struggle with infirmity. (The contemporary storyline of Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, which coincidentally is about a character named Willa, is comparable in that respect.) Newman is frank about Willa’s lesbianism and Rocky’s bisexuality, and she doesn’t hold back about the difficulties of menopause, either. Rocky is challenged to rethink her responsibilities as a daughter, wife and mother when she’s surrounded by equally strong-willed people who won’t do what she wants them to. The novel is so quirky, funny and relatable that it’s impossible not to sympathize with Rocky even if, like me, you’re in a very different life situation.

One observation I would make is that Rocky is virtually identical to Ash in Newman’s debut, We All Want Impossible Things, and to the author in real life (as I know from subscribing to her Substack). If you read even the most basic information about her, it’s clear that it’s all autofiction. That’s not an issue for me as I don’t think inventing is inherently superior to drawing from experience; some authors write what they know in a literal sense and that’s okay. So, for her fans, more of the same will be no problem at all. But it is a very particular voice: intense, scatty, purposely outrageous. Rocky is a protagonist who says things like, “How am I a feminist, an advocate for reproductive rights, Our Bodies, Ourselves, hear me roar, blah blah, and I am only just now learning about vaginal atrophy?” (A companion nonfiction read would be Nina Stibbe’s Went to London, Took the Dog.)

In outlook Newman reminds me a lot of Anne Lamott, who is equally forthright and whose books similarly juxtapose life’s joy and sorrows, especially in this late passage: “this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel.”

This is a sweet, fun, chatty book that’s about a summer break – and would be perfect to read on a summer break.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

2024-release blog-tour holocaust

Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,476 reviews

Ratings & Reviews for

Sandwich

Catherine Newman

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