This makes me really feel down to leave a less than glowing review but I just couldn't get into this book!! It has great reviews but I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I should just have carried on but sorry this book just wasn't for me!

Beautifully written, Mary Beth Keane is a master of the quill. She is an artist with words and with a beautiful and compelling read!

Brilliant book! I couldn't put it down.

Two families, neighbours in one of the suburbs of New York. One day tragedy occurs and from then on everything falls apart for these two families but is intertwined at the same time in the decades that follow.

The book tells the story from the different angles of the various protagonists. I felt this really added to the story and made it so interesting to read. It's not a tale of right and wrong. It shows how different people react to trauma, how perspective changes over time and how trauma and how we are brought up can reverberate throughout our life, against all better knowledge.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ask Again, Yes is a story about two young people raised side by side by very different families. A very telling book of love, friendships and mental health. A little slow at times but it was moving and glad I persevered.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.I keep hovering between 3 star's and 4 star's and I am still not sure! I enjoyed the story,the characters felt extremely real. I loved the rawness. Something,however,just did not feel right and I am not sure what it was,maybe it was the writing style I felt like it didn't flow as it should? Almost like each paragraph wasn't meant to fit together. I did love how the story brought attention to mental health issues,families,love,difficulties, and the realities of life.

This was the first book I've read by Keane and I loved it! Giving different perspectives of the same incident was extremely interesting offering different opinions according to the character. The way the author delves into the minds of her characters and gives a clear narrative is worthy of reading. Would highly recommend.

Ask Again Yes is about love, loyalty, family, trust, mental illness, honesty, betrayal and forgiveness.

Ask Again Yes gives us 2 families with near star-crossed lovers at the centre, each desperate for the other but unable to cross enemy lines into the other family for fear of betrayal and a desperation to remain loyal.

No spoilers from me but I enjoyed that we followed their lives; not just a brief moment in time but we saw these people grow up, change and settle into themselves as time went on.

A really great all round read that I'd highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley, Mary Beth Keane and the publisher for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Two neighbouring families, living in a suburban town, are eternally connected. They’re connected through predictable friendship and love; disaster, too. Ask Again, Yes is an exploration of human interactions.

This book was nothing like I expected. I noticed it’s popularity throughout social media and by it’s reputable Goodreads rating. Because of this, I prejudged this book to be a novel with a great, hooking narrative that would be impossible to put down. What I discovered was so much more, minus the hooking narrative. I’ve found that modern fiction is leaning towards the increasingly deep character explorations and this is evident within Ask Again, Yes.

The novel tackles several problematic and, frankly, hard issues. These include mental illness, alcoholism, illness and parental abandonment. Through the novels careful attention to character development and interaction, these issues are delivered perfectly. The characters all seemed extremely real and imperfect - a combination that makes for a true realistic, believable story.

The character I found most interesting was Anne. If I’m being honest, Anne terrified me at the beginning of the novel - and rightly so. She is definitely viewed as the most problematic character in the book. Her mental illness sends every single other character’s life spinning in a different direction. However, after treatment, I found Anne to be somewhat redeemable. Her hope and persistence kept me from strongly disliking her and instead I learnt to accept her, as did some of the characters.

Personally, I feel that the slow narrative slightly took away potential enjoyment from the novel for me. However, I do recognise and understand the marvel that is Ask Again, Yes.

The Gleesons and the Stanhopes, as well as being neighbours, have much in common: both men are rookie cops, both have Irish connections but the differences in their family lives ultimately cause deep divisions. Brian's wife Anne, originally from Ireland suffers a stillbirth and a miscarriage before finally giving birth to Peter; meanwhile Lena Gleeson has produced three girls. Kate, the youngest, and Peter are drawn together right from the start and form a strong and devoted friendship. Always a cold, distant person who refuses Lena's attempts at friendship, Anne hates Kate and tries to prevent the friendship with Peter. Her fragile mental health, always close to the surface, erupts one night with disastrous consequences.

The writing style is absolutely beautiful, there's a flow and matter-of-fact style to it. The characters are well drawn, utterly believable, Peter especially as he struggles to communicate with his mother, whilst mourning the loss of the close friendship with Kate.

This is quite a dark story with not many glimpses of joy, but nonetheless I enjoyed reading it for the writing style alone. The first half of the book really held my interest, sadly the second half seems to lack pace, and I did start to skim a bit. There are so many topics covered - mental health, loss, friendship, forgiveness, it does make you wonder how much one - or two-families can bear.

On the whole I did enjoy this, and I would certainly look at this author's other books.

My thanks to Netgalley for a free download.

This is a family saga centred round two families who live next door to each other in a quiet community an hour or so from the city. Both the husbands work as policemen in New York and both their partners provide them with families. But there similarity ends. Friendship and love between one generation is mirrored by conflict and tragedy in the other. Keane's novel covers the period 1970 to 2017 and unflinchingly lays bare societal attitudes to things like alcoholism and stress-induced illness. Fluid writing and excellent characterisation will keep you turning the pages of this substantial novel and, I suspect, every reader will feel it was time well spent. Strongly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this character-led novel. It is hard to read at times as the difficulties the characters face are at times quite relentless, but it felt very believable with strong, empathetic characters. A great read for anyone who loves a dysfunctional family drama!

Ask Again Yes is a well written book about a family saga that would rip any normal family apart. It takes you through decades of a childhood almost destroyed and the aftermath that follows. Well thought throigg, I particular liked how the story is told from different characters perspective

This book has to be one of my favorite reads! I really enjoyed how the characters grew and evolved over time. The time frame of the book was exactly when I was growing up so it was so relatable. At times I wanted to punch Anne and often wondered why Peter didn't fight back more. I felt sorry for his character because of the way his father abandoned him. Fantastic book!~

Moving and empathetic, I found it hard to put down- a thoughtful, well written story which stays with you after finishing it

The storyline for this was wonderful. The perceptions from the two families and characters was great.

The storyline was really good and seemed to progress at a steady pace. Overall I loved it.

A wonderful book, left me very emotional, it absolutely captures modern life, relationships, family dynamics in such a searingly honest way. Although the families of Kate and peter have to deal with the aftermath of a very unique and life-changing situation, their stories could be many families. As Anne says, it is what we experience in the early years that has the most effect on our lives and it can take a lifetime to unravel this. I loved this book, it made me weep towards the end but I loved the hope that was there. Sometimes life doesn’t give us what we wanted or expected but love can win out in the end. Thank you Mary Beth Keane, I won’t forget this in a hurry.

I've tried but unable to finish this one - for me the narrative just wasn't gripping enough. I've read great reviews about it so I'm sure it has a lot of impact on many people.

This was the perfect ending to my 2019 book-wise. It is a beautifully written, evenly paced family drama, similar in style to Celeste Ng's novels.

The book focuses on two families, the Stanhopes and the Gleesons, and events in their intertwined lives over the course of 40 years or so. The story felt very real, full of feeling and yet not sentimental; building genuine characters layer by layer through skilfully crafted narrative.

I can't wait to read future books written by this author.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ecopy of this book provided in exchange for an honest and impartial review.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is a wonderful, engrossing book. It tells of childhood friends who grow up together happily devoted to each other until a tragic event disrupts their lives. The story also describes the hardships, fears and disappointments that come through mental health and addiction problems. Despite some traumatic and emotional events, it is also a story of love, hope and family loyalty. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I'm going to admit something, when I started this and saw that it began with cops in the 1970s, I thought it was going to be just a standard Irish-immigrant-in-America story. I had seen it compared to Brooklyn more than once, and while I was happy to read it, I wasn't overly excited. Having finished it, I think comparisons to any other novel should be avoided (especially ones with dull main characters - looking at you, Eilish Lacey). This is a sweeping, touching, heartfelt novel about two families and how their lives intertwine. How one single night can change all of their lives forever - but in reality, was it just one single night? Or were there several days and nights, even fleeting moments, that built up, clung to each other, and simmered until they swelled into one giant crashing wave?

This has been described as "boy meets girl" or "a touching romance" - for me, personally, the romance was the least interesting part. I didn't really feel a huge romantic connection between the two, because the timeline advanced quite quickly in parts. For me, reading a romance, there has to be a little bit of tension, a build-up - and I didn't feel that here. I wasn't very interested in the romantic element but I was very, very invested in the male partner and how the events of his childhood would shape him as a man.

The real gem of this story, and the character I became completely enthralled by, was Anne Stanhope. She's a fascinating woman - flawed, troubled, human. The development of her character was so engaging, she felt so real to me. Ditto Francis Gleeson - these two characters have so much backstory, so much heart, and the writer really took the time to flesh them out so that we had some sort of understanding as to why they behaved the way they did, and why they made the choices they made.

I would have loved a little more insight into George, I was shocked when his age was revealed because I assumed he was so much older. I wanted to go back and re-read his parts again with this fresh information, just to try and get more of a feel for him and how so much had happened to him in his early years. I thought he was a wonderful addition to the story.

This isn't always an easy read - the more serious incidents aside, the thing that was most unsettling for me was the tiny hints that history was possibly about to repeat itself and that I, as a reader, was completely powerless to do anything about it. All I could do was observe.