Member Reviews

Four decades, two families. This book follows the relationship and friendship between two friends and their families. It’s quite a slow burner, but a very emotional one.

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Not my normal genre but I did enjoy this book. There were interesting twists and difficult topics handled very well and it was beautifully written throughout. I had sympathy with most of the characters and found that I cared what happened to them. Recommended.

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This story will test your emotions to their limit. It deals with some deep and difficult issues. Its a powerful, moving story. Beautifully written. Its hard to describe the book without giving too much away. I would just say, grab a copy plus a box of tissues and read for yourself.

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I tried this again and LOVED it! I loved Kate and Peter and Francis especially. I loved how the book took us over forty years within two families. Loved it.

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I could not drag myself away from the haunting, sad story of how a family passes on its dysfunction to next generation. Fathers and sons are cops, the women are home makers and office workers. But one major tragic event, and a sequence of mental disability turns the two linked families to near lethal solutions, haunting their lives in ways they don't always suss out themselves. It wraps up realistically if sadly but well worth hanging in.

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I love a good family saga. Ask Again, Yes is a compelling one, a great read to get yourself lost in. It follows the lives of Gleeson and Stanhope families over a span of forty years. Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope meet as rookie cops in New York in 1973 and end up living next door to each other in the suburbs. While Francis’s wife, Lena tries to make friends with the neighbours, Anne, Brian’s wife is standoffish. Kate, Gleesons’ youngest daughter and Peter, Stanhopes’ son become best friends on a cusp of something more until a tragedy separates them and Stanhopes move away. Over the years that follow we see Kate, Peter, Anne and Francis as they move on with their lives.

At times profoundly moving, Ask Again, Yes is about love and forgiveness, mental illness, abandonment and addiction. Keane writes with great sensitivity and humanity, especially about mental illness and learning to live with and move on from past mistakes. At times, I felt deeply for some of the characters but, at others, I felt that the book was somewhat slow and uneven and wished that Keane gave us more than a glimpse into other characters. I had questions about Brian, Lena, the two elder Gleeson sisters that I did not find answers to. Still, this is a very good book, beautifully written and observed.

My thanks to Penguin Michael Joseph and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Ask Again, Yes.

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Stretched over four decades, Ask Again, Yes, is a deeply moving and poignant story of two families bound together by a tragedy that is impossible to forget and hard to forgive. Next door neighbours, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are both cops in the NYPD, both newly married and with children on the way. Francis' wife Lena is keen to be friends with her neighbour Anne, but Anne does not wish to have anything to do with her neighbours. Their children, Peter and Kate are born only 6 months apart from each other and become friends despite Anne's disapproval and her strange behaviour which is getting out of control.

There's been a bit of hype surrounding Ask Again, Yes and after reading it, I believe it is justified. I love a good family drama, especially the ones that span over a lifetime with a cast of characters you get to know and like. This is definitely one of those books. The character and plot development was slow to start with, but once you get through the first few chapters, you will want to stay around the two families to see how their lives progress and where their story goes. What I appreciated in the book was the contrast between the two families - flawed Stanhopes versus lovely Gleesons - and then suddenly the realisation that the seemingly unblemished characters such as Francis Gleeson also had their flaws. The book also deals with some tough issues such as alcoholism and mental illness which I found to be portrayed in a sensitive but realistic way.

Ask Again, Yes is a fascinating story about relationships, love and ultimately, forgiveness that I recommend to anyone interested in relationships and nuances of human behaviour. Many thanks to Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Wow!!!
This book!
I was immediately invested in the story.
The writing was beautiful.
The ending brilliant.
A coming of age so heartbreakingly real.
I felt my heart in pain and also be hopefull for this characters.
Probably one of my favorite characters was Lena.
the story begins with Brian Stanhope days as a new copy and evolves as the characters!
Thank you so much for the opportunity of reading this one!

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Wow! This started off a little slowly for me but it didn't take long to be drawn in, thanks to beautiful writing and extremely well-drawn characters. Once I got into it I didn't want to put it down and was totally enthralled in this family saga about two families whose intertwined lives across three generations are fraught with trauma and complication. Mary Beth Keane writes so well that you cannot help but feel drawn into the life of the characters, each with their own flaws and issues, and as I got further into the book I felt more and more emotionally invested in each and every one of them.

Whilst at a simple level it is a story about two families dealing with life and all that it throws at us, what for me set this book apart was the extent to which I found myself thinking about it and reflecting when I wasn't reading it, primarily about how much baggage we all carry in life and how much it affects everything we do as well as all those around us. It is for that reason it will stay with me long after I have finished turning the pages.

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This is a beautifully crafted family saga. I absolutely loved it, from beginning to end. It tells the story, ultimately, of Peter and Kate, who live next door to each other as children, until terrible events intervene. The author has immense empathy, and made me see someone else's point of biew, in a way I never thought I would. I can not recommend this book highly enough.

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I could barely put this book down, I actually read it for an hour before I put it down to add to Goodreads (as currently reading). This book certainly covers a lot of time the main characters being 20 at the start of the book and in their late 60's at the end.
There were plenty of twists and turns in this book and I liked all the characters (even the nasty ones)
I would certainly be looking for another book by Mary Beth Keane to read again.
After finishing the book I felt a little out of sorts, perhaps because I didn't feel that the characters story was finished, but it wouldn't stop me recommending it to other people as a good read.

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An amazing opus of a book. Keane has created a labyrinth structure of a novel featuring memorable characters, the setting of recent late millennium gives a nostalgic tinge that you would think of how Revolutionary Road or Ford novels read. I have cherished reading this book when I can, long but savoured every page

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I loved this book - I have already recommended via social media and will continue to do so closer to publication. It is the sort of big American family novel that I love - reminded me of Celeste Ng, Meg Wolitzer and so on. The author does an excellent job of getting inside the heads of complicated characters and really making you care.

My one criticism is the title - which of course makes sense when you finish the book, but will sell the book to no-one and gives very little sense of what it is.

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From the moment I began reading Mary Beth Keane's story of a trauma that shatters the lives of neighbouring families in New York in the nineteen seventies, I was gripped. The characterisation is so authentic and the emotional narrative so compelling. It has the feel of an instant classic.

What is particularly appealing about Keane's writing is the way her characters develop. We witness them slowly gaining articulacy as they gradually come to terms with the mutability of history.

"A memory is a fact that's been dyed and trimmed and rinsed so many times that it comes out looking unrecognisable to anyone else who was in that room," Kate, one of the central characters, concludes when reminded of an incident she witnessed in which a neighbouring child climbed a telephone pole only to get paralysed with fear when he had nearly reached the top. It's an event that she had entirely dismissed from her thoughts; but now, forced to recall it, she understands the emblematic significance it holds for herself and her husband.

This is what makes the writing so effective: we are witnessing the characters thinking their way through their own experience. And that experience has included shocking violence, mental illness, addiction and child abuse.

But this is no catalogue of misery. Keane's book is essentially optimistic. It's about survival through empathy, and the author displays an emotional reach that I found hugely impressive. Without a doubt this is the best book I have read this year.

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I don't often cry, but this made me. It's a story of two families - imperfect, hopeful, ordinary - and the love that connects them: that between the son of one family and the daughter of the other. It could so easily have been cliched, a contrived modern-day Romeo and Juliet - but the characters were all so real, so intricately drawn that it wasn't. Instead there was something epic about the scope of the novel. By the time I'd finished the novel, I'd spent so long with the characters, and believed in them so completely, I felt completely wrung out, I loved it.

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This was a tough read for me. It's a story about families, mental illness, abandonment and violence and despite being well written, just didn't do anything for me.

It's got a legion of fans and I really don't want to publicise my views as I found myself skipping parts. Just sorry I don't feel the enthusiasm of the many.

2*

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

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This is a story about mental illness and how it affects everyone, not just the person. The story all circles around traffic events on one night and then individually how people moved on with their lives. It's not a big story with a great plot, it is an In depth look at people and families touched by alcoholism and mental illness

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What a FANTASTIC read. This is not my normal genre but I was captured after the first couple of pages. Mary Beth Keane is on my "watch list" for the future. After reading the book I reflected on my childhood and friends I have had for over 50 years and how we were when we were growing up from 6 and the fun we had in our teens and how some changed for the better and some for the worse which made this book so real and honest even though it was set in the USA and my memories are of the UK. I recommend this book for people who like a good honest read and want to reminisce on their life and friends they have grown up with.

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A family drama told over decades in beautifully realised detail.

Two NYPD rookies end up living next door to each other just outside of the city. They are definitely colleagues rather than friends, but their lives are forever interlinked first when their children Kate and Peter become friends, then after a tragic incident that none of them will ever be able to forget.

The author changes viewpoint and time period frequently as we follow these families through their lives. But somehow she draws them as real full people very quickly.

Peter's mother, Anne Stanhope, does not like the friendship between Peter and Kate. But then she doesn't like much of anything. It becomes clear that she has been struggling with severe mental illness for years without any help, and that Peter has been looking after himself (his father preferring to look the other way) for most of that time. When Anne is driven to extremes, Peter and his father move away and the friendship torn apart.

As the children grow up, the families try to repair themselves. One almost succeeds, the other definitely fails at the first hurdle. Then as adults, Kate and Peter rediscover each other and find that their inclination to spend as much time together as possible is still mutual. But what does that mean when their past is so broken?

This is a story of mental health, marriage and forgiveness, skilfully told. It has a few moments that moved a little slower than others, or I might've given it a 5, but then again I still might!

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Really loved this book. Engaging family saga with a number of twists and turns. Tragic and heartwarming.

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