This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It is a story about Isaac's grief about Mary and how he deals with it. The symbolism and the reality of Egg is something that you don't truly grasp until you read the last (shocking) section of the book. This book is both funny and shocking, and thought-provoking. I would recommend anyone to read this as you have no idea what direction it is going on.

Thanks for letting me read an advance copy!

I am not sure what to say about this book. It is heart rendering for the most part and a book that someone who has lost someone might find some solace in – we all get there in the end with our grief. The story starts with Isaac Addy standing on a bridge ready to jump to his death. He has lost his wife, Mary, in a road accident and we assume his son also. He hears a noise in the woods and goes to investigate. Here is Egg who has arrived from who knows where. He is fluffy, yellow and with huge eyes. They bond, Isaac needs a friend and is Egg lost – am not sure.
They go home together and this is where Isaac and Egg go on a rollercoster of a ride. Isaac is going through a mental breakdown, he has cut off all ties with his family although his sister does not give up trying to help. He and Egg roll along together with disastrous and sometimes funny results. Egg decides to cook Isaac breakfast. Puts the toast and the baked beans in the toaster making a complete mess. Can just imagine this. Isaac need a push to get back into the real world and Egg helps him do this and, of course, Isaac wants to help Egg “get home”. I am going to finish this review without any more narrative so as not to spoil the plot. Please read this book – it is so lovely and makes you realise how grief and then loneliness can be such a terrible thing. It is beautifully written and a book everyone should read – quite charming

I dont recall the last time I literally laughed out loud at a book. Bobby Palmer has such a way with words. I laughed out loud but I also felt the pain of Isaac’s loss, whilst I did.

Isaac and the Egg is brilliantly written and an absolute joy to read. It is an endearing tale of a man and his egg.
A bittersweet tale of a man suffering loss but whom is comforted by an odd looking egg with gibbon-like arms.
Isaac shuts himself away following his wife’s bereavement and that gives Isaac and the reader time, to get to know the egg.
I so loved the interactions between man and egg. So comical, so magical.
The story has very few characters but they are strong rounded characters that fill the book.
I admire the author’s ability in creating brilliant visual scenes.
Bobby Palmer really pays attention to a scene, sees it played out in front of him and describes the detail with absolute ease, as though we are there.

Funny and endearing interactions between Isaac and Egg makes this book my top read this year.
Egg is adorable. Everybody needs an egg. I want an egg.
It would be a shame not to have a comeback novel.
Can’t wait for the next Bobby Palmer masterpiece

A touching look at how loss affects those left behind, Isaac and the Egg is quite simply wonderful.

Following Issac as he tries to come to terms with the demise of his beloved wife, the story takes you in many different directions, as well as following Issac's growing friendship with his foundling Egg.

Blending perfectly moments of confusion, despair, numbness, anger and immense sadness with some well timed humorous/lighter moments, readers are offered a ring-side seat on Issac and the Egg's journey of discovery and acceptance.

Leaving me feeling both happy and a little sad, I look forward to reading more books by Bobby - hopefully including a follow up to Issac and the Egg!

Isaac Addy is in a terrible state. He doesn’t know what to do. Once he was the illustrator of several very successful children’s books. These books were written by the love of his life, Mary Moray. They shared their lives together in their home, but now not anymore. His mind is like a tsunami of memories that he cannot bear to think about. The thoughts come to him in waves of misery as he isolates himself inside their home. Everywhere he looks there are memories of how he wanted his life to be – how he had always thought it would be, u ntil it wasn’t. His life is truly unbearable. He will not open his door to neighbours who empathise with what life has thrown at him and they want to help him. All they can do is leave food on the doorstep. Phone calls go unanswered, texts and emails too. His sister Joy is frantic with worry. He is alone and broken and he is literally going mad. He doesn’t know what to do. The house that was once his haven and his pride and joy is now unkempt, messy, smelly and abhorrent. He cannot work anymore because his mind is blank and unresponsive.
Finally he comes to a decision - the only course he has left to take. He has had it with this life. It is mean and he is worthless. He walks to their special place, a bridge not far from home. He looks down at the babbling water as it passes under the bridge. They will soon be together again. He screams in abject torment and anger, loud and long and to his surprise he hears a reply, a piercing cry of despair coming from the forest. He immediately investigates, walking through the bulk of the trees until he sees an enormous egg, left there all alone in a clearing. Little does he know but this discovery will ultimately change his life.
This debut novel has been widely publicised. It deals with love and loss, grief, friendship and mental health issues. It is well written and thought provoking. The characters are imaginative yet true to life they are eclectic. My favourite character was Joy, Isaac’s sister. She embraced his issues and wanted nothing more than to help him get through his crisis. Isaac at last has a companion and eventually he agrees to have counselling with Dr Abbass and his life starts to have a rhythm. He makes lists to fill up his time and tries to teach Egg in the hope that they can have conversations together. He hides Egg away when he goes out or if he needs to answer a knock on the door. Where there is life there is always hope and as Isaac slowly grasps his rehabilitation, the summer sunshine seems to help him recover.
I found the first half of the novel quite slow going and warmed more to the rest of it. I particularly enjoyed the ending where Isaac is healthy and takes responsibility for his family, as well as Egg. The contrast between Isaac in the beginning of the novel to the end is heartening and heart-warming. Sometimes you have to let friends go if it is in their best interest, even though you will be sad without them.
I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Review through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for my copy sent in return for an honest and unbiased review. It’s an interesting read and my review reflects this fact.

I really tried to get into this book, but I just couldn't. Maybe I wasn't in the right mindset or something. I found the writing style pretty irritating. It read to me like someone trying to write a short story with too many explanations in it, but it just never stopped. I think it was this that really put me off.
Even when the egg 'hatched' and we were given a description, I felt it was almost too detailed to the point I actually couldn't imagine what it looked like at all.
Honestly, I didn't finish this book. And I almost never give up completely, but I just wasn't connecting at all with it, and was finding it a nightmare to read.

⭐️ 1 star sorry.

This is not my usual genre of book but every now and then I like to try something different so when I saw the reviews for this, I decided to give it a go.

However I just couldn’t get into it. I stopped and started it a couple of times but I just found the storyline and the concept of the egg really silly.

This is the first time ever where I have given up on a book

One of the strangest stories I have ever read!
It deals with love, loss and grief. How a broken man is helped by an egg.
The first half is a little bit boring in places. I preferred the second half.
I can’t say much more because of spoilers.
A very emotional story but worth reading.

A completely different book to those I have read before - how refreshing, I loved it! A complete mixture of emotions as we go along with Isaac on his roller-coaster of a journey.
If you are struggling to get into the book, please persevere as I did because you will be grateful that you did.

Isaac finds an egg three weeks after his wife died unexpectedly. He is at one of the darkest points in his life when he stumbles across an enormous white mass in the forest. It is clearly much too large to be from a nearby animal so it’s easy to wonder where it came from, whether it may be from another planet, and what might be inside.

As Isaac takes the egg and brings it home his past is gradually revealed through memories and trinkets around the house. The egg grows to be much more than when first discovered, and its presence has an impact on Isaac’s very quiet and lonely home. The egg helps us to understand both Isaac now, and the man he once was, along with the grief and traumatic circumstances that first bought him to the clearing in the forest, right by the bridge, where he had been contemplating putting a permanent stop to it all.

This isn’t a story about an egg. This is a book about Isaac; his grief, of friendship, and of finding a way out of the darkness.

Isaac Addy really isn’t coping with life, and we meet him as he contemplates ending that life, by jumping from a bridge - he sees no hope after losing the love of his life, his wife Mary. However, something very strange is about to take place when he discovers a huge egg in a forest by the bridge, which unsurprisingly he decides to call ‘Egg’.

A beautifully written debut novel, that would melt a heart of stone, and I suspect it’s going to be very popular! After reading this, I think you’ll agree, that we all need an ‘Egg’ in our lives! This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

A very weird and surprising book on the power of love and grief. This was such an unexpected read which really pulled on the heartstrings but also made me laugh quite a lot. There are some very bizarre and surprising moments and even now, I'm not 100% sure what happened!

A very good debut novel and I can't wait to read more of Bobby Palmer's writing.

What a weird little book!

This book is certainly unique and varies vastly from all of the other books I have read.
Isaac, the main character of this novel, is contemplating suicide when he is drawn into the woods, where he discovers the egg. We then follow them on their journey.

This book really hits at all of your emotions, one moment it has you laughing and the very next in tears. I really the way that you were never quite sure what was going to happen next, but desparately needed to know, it definitely kept me reading!

A magical little book on the nature of grief and life as a whole.

Thank you Netgalley for the earc.

Well, I am not quite sure what to write, here, apart from Wow!
Okay, so I know I have to write a few more words than that, so here goes.
When you read a blurb, and it leaves you feeling no clearer as to what you are about to read, but intrigued? That was my feeling upon starting this book.
We start by meeting Isaac, our main character, who is at the lowest of low places, contemplating taking his own life by jumping off a bridge, when a loud shriek brings him to some sort of sense. Following this noise, he ends up discovering the egg in the title, and what followed is a heartwarming, and sad, but filled with happy pockets, story about grief, and finding your support.
I don't think I can write much more about the story, without ruining it for someone, but it absolutely isn't what I was expecting, and more than lived up to my expectations!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Headline for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A weird and wonderful story about love, loss, grief, the importance of companionship and learning to let people in when you need them the most.
 
Isaac is standing on a bridge on the worst day of his life, and screams into the void. Something screams back…
 
To say much more about what happens next would be to diminish the magic of reading this book for the first time. A powerful debut exploring the often-overlooked mental wellbeing of men, with lead character Isaac barely functioning day to day. A strange event gives him enough curiosity to keep going, and we are alongside him as he slowly works through his demons.
 
There is an element of mystery to this novel that would keep you reading even if you weren’t invested in the emotional aspect of the book. Isaac often blacks out, and sometimes disappears only to reappear sheepishly hours later with no explanation. Adding this layer of intrigue makes the novel even more addicting, as I couldn’t wait for everything to become clear at the end.
 
A special shout out must be made to celebrate the unusual typography of the book. Screams in huge fonts take over the page. Egg-related questions appear in an egg-shaped layout. This all added to the quirky fun of the novel and just made it all the more memorable. I can’t wait to see what Bobby Palmer writes next.
 
Isaac and the Egg are both hard to explain, easy to love and impossible to forget…

Is there any book blogger who hasn’t been desperate to get their hands on this book?

At first, I couldn’t decide if it was a work of genius, or a 300-page weird, bizarre ramblings. It’s a difficult book to review as I’m not sure any words that I write will give a true reflection of what I thought of this book. I just want to know how on Earth this storyline came into his head. Was it from life experience? A dream? Just randomly popped into his mind? I need to know!

Palmer’s description of grief and bereavement is very well executed; he’s managed to put into writing how I have felt on more than one occasion (even if the grief isn’t directed at the same relation as is in this book).

It is mad and sad and funny and bizarre and heartbreaking and heartwarming, enriching and joyful.

For me, this was a book of two halves, and I kind of wish I could review it as such. Whilst I did enjoy the first half, I found it quite difficult to grasp, but the second half was an emotional sucker punch, and I found myself tearing up several times over a fictional egg. The emotions are dragged out and for me, it becomes more interesting and had something I could get my teeth into.

It is expertly written in regard to how he has treated depression and grief and anxiety and mental health, it is raw and physical, uncensored and harsh. The pure heartbreak that Bobby Palmer has put into every word is magnificent.

This book will undoubtedly do well and I will be recommending it.

For me personally, it didn’t fully engage me and I struggled with the fact that I felt as if I had encountered the subjects too many times before.

Wawooo! This debut novel is like nothing I've ever read before. Isaac Addy is contemplating suicide by jumping off a bridge when he's drawn into the nearby forest by a noise and finds Egg. It's hard to reveal much more without spoiling it so I'll leave my summary at that. This is a heartbreaking read about one man's grief. It's also such an unexpected sweet tale of friendship and reconnecting with life after loss. If you're a fan of the movie E.T. or the old TV show ALF, this one's for you! And if someone doesn't turn this book into a movie, I'll be very surprised!

Could not get into this book at all. I gave up within the first few chapters I found it very hard to concentrate as there was nothing there to grip me just lots of words that did not equate to anything.
It maybe my mind was not ready for this book and maybe at a later time I will try again and if I succeed in reading it and I come to a better conclusion I will amend my review.

Just the most beautiful book! I laughed and I sobbed, sometimes at the same time. Can’t wait to be able to start selling this in August.