Sandwich

★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

226 pages

What’s it about?

Rocky is sandwiched right between her almost grown children and her aging parents. When she and her husband Nick take their annual vacation to Cape Cod (with the kids and her parents) she is sandwiched between being annoyed and her fear of losing them.

What did it make me think about?

Family.

Should I read it?

I absolutely loved Catherine Newman's novel We All Want Impossible Things so I was very excited to read this book. I enjoyed this story but the characters were almost too reminiscent of the characters in her last book. Same quirky mom, lesbian daughter, and patient husband. The narrator still is struggling with anticipatory grief and the enormity of love. It was still a good story with wry observations but I would start with We All Want Impossible Things.

A passage I marked

"It's always so easy with grown kids! Okay, that's not true. They struggle and stray and are sometimes heartbroken. They can bristle, take offense, go silent. They chafe against the very fact of you, the parents- against the judgement seeping out of you even while you're busy impressing yourself with your won restraint."