This book was not my jam and I can tell you it was a me problem and not a book/author problem. This was my 1st book by Kelly McClure but I will certainly give them another read!

#SomethingIsAlwaysHappeningSomewhere
#NetGalley

Wow, if you're going to start your book with a horrific home invasion rape as well as the murder of a couple of animals you'd really better have something stellar to follow it up with. This book does not. I was shocked that this was written by a queer person since it was nothing but raw, queer trauma beginning to end. Not for me.

I have to admit I struggled with this novella. As a gay reader myself I was really excited to support a fellow queer author and read about queer characters, especially a married lesbian couple. There's a lot that's unique and interesting here, and I especially admire the choice to write a novella instead of a full novel. The pacing is strong and quick and the plot is, in some ways, very original. That said, I struggled with the ongoing violence in the story--we open with a graphic scene of physical and sexual violence that I wish had come with a content warning somewhere in the book or summary. Then violence and disappointment pretty much permeate the rest of the story, even on the very last page. I know some readers will enjoy this relentless portrayal of an unforgiving world that doesn't stop for grief, and I do get it. It's not bad or wrong to write this way or show this world. But it's not the best fit for me, and I felt myself wishing we could slow down at points and lean into complexities and nuances that might offer if not relief, variety, and diversity of emotional range and response. I'm sure plenty of readers will love this book so I do recommend it, but again, not a great fit for me personally.

Dale and her wife, Gina, move into their new forever home, and are happier than they ever thought. But then the worst happens, and Dale has to navigate a new world without Gina. A world she realises is filled with hatred.

This is a story filled with grief, sadness and some aspects of 'horror' in the sense of a horrific act. It explores one person's journey through grief, and how utterly lonely it can be.

This book was not what I expected. I do believe some of that was due to the mislabelling of this novel as "Mysteries & Thrillers". There is no mystery and nothing about this is particularly thrilling. The story follows a woman in her grief and is more reflective than anything else. The prose parts were written quite beautifully at times, especially in times of heightened emotion, like despair. However, the dialogue often read as a bit stiff or off. There were also a couple inconsistencies with certain details, and it is unclear whether this was intentional or not. The story also ends quite abruptly with no real conclusion to it. Certain plot lines are given a similar treatment when they are not referred to later on. It was hard to think the events in the story were connected to one another beyond what happened to her and her wife. I would also be aware of sexual assault and rape being pivotal subjects in the book. I do think the premise of following a woman in her grief and dealing with outside parties as nice though.

I was given an e-ARC an exchange for an honest review.

This is mostly a story of grief beginning when Dale comes home one night to find her wife being assaulted by a stranger. That scene was brutal. Not much happens for the rest of the book though. It's kind of just Dale sleepwalking through life. It wasn't bad but wasn't really good either. 2.5 stars rounded to 3.

Honestly I read this in a few hours because it was so short, but I couldn't really tell you that I took anything away from it. It was entertaining, I guess. But it also was predictable. And I'm tired of every LGBT representation in books having to face a homophobic antagonist. Can't we just have a happy ending for once?

I just couldn’t connect with this one at all.

Dale as a character mostly annoyed me. I’m sure it was the grief talking but it’s hard to feel for a character when you don’t know them outside of their grief. The writing felt stilted a lot of the time, too.

Overall, definitely not for me.

I won’t be posting a review for this on social media.

I didn’t really click with this. The idea was fine but I felt like some of it didn’t make sense—the stuff about organ donation was nonsensical. Weird mistakes like saying they don’t have landline but they do plagued the book. They bought fancy things but then bemoaned their lack of money with any insight.

It really was about families being torn apart and grief but it was almost too much of a downer.

“Something is Always Happening Somewhere” is a depressing novella following one woman’s insurmountable grief in the wake of a personal tragedy. Dale returns home one day after work to find her wife, Gina, being actively assaulted. When Gina later dies in the hospital, Dale is left alone and consumed by her grief.

This is a difficult book to read. It made me cry, it made me uncomfortable, it made me angry. It felt like a very real portrayal of grief, especially the grief of a loved one so close to the main character. I appreciated the acknowledgment of difficulty in grieving for someone who lacks a support system, especially when that lack of support is in part due to homophobia from the family of the one you lost. It was upsetting to read, but I appreciated that complexity in the storytelling. This book is not for everyone. It contains some hard content to bear and is not happy by any means. No one gets a happy ending in this one.

I gave it 3 stars because while I liked the book, it left something to be desired. The dialogue felt a little stilted and unrealistic which took me out of the story a few times. There were a few scenes I felt were unnecessary to the plot and seemed haphazardly thrown in.

That being said, I believe it was a good depiction of grief, the repetitive nature of grief, and the stages it appears as. While reading, I really felt for Dale and what she was going through despite never having been through it myself. McClure has real potential, and this is a great debut.

CW: sexual assault, murder, suicidal ideation, homophobia

Beautiful and heartbreaking. I hadn’t read and Kelly McClure prior to receiving this but I’m always on the hunt for queer reads (especially sapphic ones) so I was super excited to read this.

After establishing a sense of normalcy, this book immediately takes a sharp turn and our protagonist, Dale, will never be the same after what she’s experienced. I won’t say anything more in the interest of not spoiling, but this was a beautiful depiction of grief, what one person can mean to someone, and how families are built and torn apart.

This book can be incredibly funny at times but also has frequent dark moments. If you can handle that, I recommend “Something is Always Happening Somewhere” to any adults that can enjoy stories that can be hard to tell and read.

TW: sexual assault, violence, blood, death, minor homophobia

I received this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

There is a very specific trajectory that popular culture follows in their stories of grief. And that trajectory is always headed up, up toward the sunshine, because of pop culture’s innate propensity for optimism.
This book, to its credit, takes a different route. A road less traveled, if you will. This is a story of what happens when a person can’t get over or get past the tragedy that destroys them. That alone makes it an unusual and difficult read and certainly not one for all audiences.
And yet, I find I strangely enjoyed it. There was a realism about it that worked. A certain brutal unflinching look at a suddenly and violently damaged life.
Dale Travers, the story’s protagonist, appears to have a perfect life when we meet her, a dream life, really. A wife of her dreams, a job of her dreams, a home of her dreams. And then she gets woken up, rudely and terribly. A devastating tragedy followed by a steady motion of a rug of her life being steadily dragged away from under her feet and unraveled as it goes. It leaves Dale scrambling to find her footing again or even just to say upright - something that’s very difficult to do, especially for a solitary person who had built her entire life around another.
Not a happy tale by any means. So read at your own discretion.
Not a perfectly written one either, it does have some debut jitters, including a certain stiltedness of writing and some goofs. Chapter one has the main character musing while getting cheap takeout and wine and delighting in how her and her wife still enjoy the small pleasures and then immediately describing a phone table in their foyer that they paid $550 for and would have paid twice that. Proceeding to tell us that the said table is useless since they have no landline…the fact that is proven elaborately wrong in the following chapters.
But other than that, it’s actually perfectly readable. Although, a very heavy and bleak of a read. Also, smartly enough, a very quick read, for this isn’t the kind of book one can spend too much time with, plus the story by design just doesn’t have that kind of mileage.
Kudos to the author for doing something different and not following the cheery conventional standards. Thanks Netgalley.

Something is Always Happening Somewhere is a story of tragedy and grief in which Dale loses her wife Gina in an incredibly horrific way. Please check trigger warnings before reading!

*“life likes nothing more than beating what’s already been beaten.”*

I’m not sure how to write a review for this book as it affected me a lot. I enjoyed the writing in this book. It was fast-paced, considering how short it is, and it kept me engaged all the way through. The writing is emotive, this does make it hard to read at some points considering the topics in this book as it doesn’t seem to sugarcoat the situation at all. I wish it was more fleshed out, the characters didn’t feel real at all and the ending fell flat. I also don’t feel like this book needed to be as sad as it is, I’m not sure if it was focused on the shock factor but it was just a LOT for me as a reader. This is a disturbing and shocking read and this book will definitely not be for everyone, the author is clearly a very talented writer, I was just disappointed in the end.

I believe that advertising this book as having horror elements is slightly misleading - there are terrible events that occur at the beginning of the book, however I don't think that necessarilly attributes to horror elements. Instead, it is a journey of Dale's life after the horrific murder of her wife, Gina.

I really appreciated the well thought out journey of grief; not once did the book attempt to sugar coat anything, nor did it make it feel as though grief was some romanticised notion. The ending felt a bit abrupt to me - I understand it was a novella, however I felt like Dale's realisation and the aftermath could've done with further fleshing out.

It was a fast-paced read, and I enjoyed the quick pace in which I was able to read through whilst remaining engaged. I just wish we'd gotten to see more of Dale's ending.

I am glad this was a short read because I didn't really enjoy it. It was quite a depressing tale, the first part of the book was fast paced and shocking, and well written, and I thought the second part of the book would be interesting but possibly understandably as the main character fell apart the book became depressing to read. There was just no let up, even down to the final pages and the orange cat, why? was that really needed, it was already depressing enough by then, I didn't feel as a reader I need more misery. I was glad to finish reading in the end.

TW: rape, violence

Thank you to WolfieVibes Publications and NetGalley for an ARC of this book! “Something Is Always Happening Somewhere” will be published May 13, 2022.

“Something Is Always Happening Somewhere” is the story of Dale when she returns home one night to a tragedy that completely changes her and flips her entire life upside down.

I got to say, I don’t really know what to think about this book. It was described as a “visceral tale of grief with horror elements” but I couldn’t find any horror at all, except for the very beginning when the tragedy occurred. There were zero horror elements, but I DID absolutely feel the grief in this book, especially through Dale’s inner dialogue.

Trying to find connections with the characters was a bit tough, because I feel like they weren’t entirely fleshed out, and their dynamics kept changing throughout the novella. There were some weird relationships that seemed a bit random, and some of the choices of the characters really didn’t make sense. I wanted to root for Dale, but she didn’t feel fully realized as a characters, so it was hard. I also found the dialogue to be dramatic - to the point where it felt a bit like a teen drama, and somewhat unrealistic.

And then, it just…ended. I realize this is a novella, but it just ended. Dale had a big “realization”, then there were 10 more pages, and then it was over. I didn’t feel a resolution, or even a proper “the ending is what you make it” situation, it just felt like it stopped. I really wanted to finish this book because I wanted to see how the plot and characters progressed, and then I got to the ending and it was unsatisfying. I think there is a lot of potential, and I think McClure is a talented writer, but this perhaps was not the novella for me.

(This review will run on my Instagram and goodreads account - links below - and will published March 9, 2022

This was an enjoyable read that I read quickly. It was dark, disturbing and unpredictable with a well written storyline and well developed characters.