Sandwich by Catherine Newman

[Arran2024]

I just read this and am interested to know what other people think. It is about a woman in her 50s dealing with elderly parents, menopause, empty nest, regrets about past decisions. She gets her adult kids to come on their annual vacation to Cape Cod and her parents stay for two days. I won't say any more. It's a New York Times best seller and much reviewed book so I hope some of you have read it.

I enjoyed reading it, and it was cleverly done if I recall correctly. It wasn't the light summer read I was expecting.

Read it a while ago but I liked it. Though I thought the main character was very hard to like and her daughter was absolutely insufferable! It was good, though.

I wasn't keen. I found it quite preachy.

I read the first few pages and got a refund from Amazon. Absolute drivel.

I didn't know you could even do that!

I simply don't understand this book's appeal. It drove me mad but I kept at it.

SO preachy. All through the book the husband is presented to us as a physical therapist. But towards the end the couple are discussing abortion and he is firmly on the right to choose side, and presumably to persuade us how important it is that we understand he is right, it says "before he went to school to be a physical therapist, Nick got a PHD and taught ethics to college students".

This made me laugh out loud. Imo this should have been edited out, it's so shoe horned in and so unlikely.

Later on the mother is discussing abortion with her daughter. Daughter checks she is still pro choice. "Oh my God, I have literally risked my life for women's access to abortion" she says. "Trans men too" says the daughter. "And non binary people".

There are pages and pages of this stuff. It's like being sent to an education camp to be lectured.

Oh god, I’m so relieved other people found it preachy too! I absolutely adored her previous book, We All Want Impossible Things, about a friend’s terminal illness. It was hilarious and heartbreaking, and absolutely brilliant about intense female friendships and I loved the warmth of the mother/daughter relationship. I gave that book to so many people, and was really looking forward to Sandwich.

I do love the way she writes - the first few pages had me really giggling, and I love the honesty about middle-aged bodies and relationships. But it was so desperate to be woke that it was though she was writing it all with the daughter at her shoulder. The gay daughter’s insistence that she might still have an accidental pregnancy if she ended up in a relationship with a transwoman?! At that point I nearly gave up.

Just finished this one as well, I really enjoyed the parts where she wrote about her sheer exhaustion when her kids were tiny, the bit about feeling sad when she made up her guest room bed because she knew that person would sleep well, was EXACTLY how I felt during the newborn phase.

Had to suspend my disbelief that they'd cram so many people into such a tiny house with 2 bedrooms and everyone else sleeping on a sofa in the kitchen. In reality they'd definitely just rent a bigger house.

Also don't believe anyone of that age with adult kids and elderly parents a few feet away would shag in their car's driver's seat.

Ha, absolutely agreed to both your points @Emilysmum90! The sleeping arrangements really bothered me too.