emma's Reviews > Day

this was the book equivalent of the bakery case holding the magic of manifold pastries within.

in other words, it contained many of my favorite things (books about career women becoming mothers, the line between lit fic and family drama, character driven to the point of nothing driving at all), but i felt constantly separated from it, as if there was a film between the story and me.

we very much live within these characters, but i didn't feel like i really knew them. their feelings felt separate from me. and while i am one of the few defenders of the way children are written in lit fic (call me precocious!), this was ridiculous — five year olds writing perfectly spelled complete sentences, babies expressing fully developed concepts of abandonment.

there is also a catfish (as in the mtv docuseries hosted by the silver fox) (silver fox as in handsome gray-haired man, also not the animal) plotline that i do not understand. not "i don't know why it was in the book." not "i'm missing what it was trying to say." i actually straight up am incapable of comprehending what literally happened. i reread pages. i tried explanations on for size. i don't know.

i think, to my misfortune, this author just may not click for me.

bottom line: i said earlier that i don't like lockdown fiction, but that's actually one of the only aspects of this i appreciated.

2.5

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tbr review

i will be honest, i have never once read lockdown fiction and been like "great, so glad i get to read about this time during which the only thing i could do was think my thoughts about this time."

but i keep trying anyway.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)