"Speak to Me" by Paula Cocozza is a beautifully written novel that explores the intricate relationships between humans and the natural world. It's a mesmerizing and lyrical journey of connection and healing.

I am not 100% sure what I feel about this book!
An interesting and realistic read, but feels like not much really happened and all in all a bit sad.

A really good read but a sad tale with it. I guess I've read too many marriage breakdown books recently and this is yet another unravelling, albeit with a slight twist of both mind and reality. I felt the pain and anguish, the want for a former lover now sprinkled in rose petalled memory bank. I'm not sure what resonated exactly, but I can still feel it.

Cannot wait to explore her other novels now!

I just concluded reading the captivating novel "Speak to Me" authored by Paula Cocozza. The book delves into the life of a woman whose marriage is on the brink of collapsing. In an effort to rekindle an old flame, she delves into her past. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and would highly recommend it to anyone who loves an engaging story.

Speak to Me by Paula Cocozza is about Susan and Kurt’s disintegrating marriage. Kurt is addicted to his smartphone, nicknamed Wendy by Susan. This is an odd and quirky novel told with dry humour in a meandering timeline which loses a bit of momentum in the third act when Susan reconnects with her first boyfriend Antony after reading old letters she has kept in a briefcase. I wonder how this book will be received in decades to come - hopefully the stark warnings about how technology can take over our lives won’t have been completely ignored by then.

Susan moves into a new home with her husband and twin teens, and starts to obsess about finding a briefcase full of letters from her first love, which she lost during the house move.
She is reminiscing about her first love because she’s losing her husband to his mobile phone, it’s like his other woman, she even names it Wendy
“I shall explain about our marriage - we have a modern version of a long distance relationship. We share a house, but live in different historical eras”
A confessional story of our techno times, showing the perils of modern living and how the art of conservation is disappearing, Susan feels increasingly invisible and inaudible to her current family.
Loved Susan’s witty observations, like an Alan Bennett monologue.
Very relatable and although funny in parts, thought it was taken to the extremes and a bit too far fetched.
Thanks @cocozzapaula @tinderpress & @netgalley for the eARC

Speak to Me tells the very relatable story of a woman who’s competing with a smartphone for her husband’s attention.

“ His phone is programmed to reward attention, whereas I am saying nothing new and my words are too wordy”

But it is also about lost loves, and how we can romanticise the past as she obsesses over a lost briefcase which holds love letters from an old flame. The comparison of analogue and digital means of communication, the old and the new, is a common theme throughout as our protagonist struggles with embracing modern life. The varying timelines aren’t always clearly signposted and kept me consistently confused. I so enjoyed the author’s first book so it’s with regret I have to admit I quit this one halfway through. It just wasn’t very good.

In a world where everyone seems to be permanently attached to their mobile devices and seemingly incapable of existing without them, I was drawn to the premise of this novel: a woman who is desperately craving the attention of her husband who is otherwise engaged with his phone. Susan’s marriage is crumbling around her as she seems unable to engage her husband in even a simple conversation, let alone any intimacy without him being distracted by his phone, Wendy as named by Susan. However, the problems actually lie deeper than this when we discover Susan has lost her much treasured briefcase in the move to their new home. As Susan desperately searches for the lost pieces of her life - the intimacy she had with her husband, proper interaction with her sons and her missing briefcase - she speaks directly to the reader and recalls events past, present and written in her notebook. At times this could be slightly confusing, but as the book progressed I found myself increasingly swept up into Susan’s tragedy and came to see it as representing the chaos and turmoil within her. A story of lost love, domestic life, loneliness and what ifs that will certainly make you think about the impact of keeping secrets and communicating with others.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy in exchange for a review.

I’d describe this book as realistic fiction. The author has done a fantastic job of creating imaginary characters and situations that depict the world and society. The characters focus on themes of growing, self-discovery and confronting personal and social problems. The language is clear, concise, and evocative, with descriptions that bring the setting and characters to life. Dialogue is natural and authentic, and the pacing is well-balanced, with enough tension and release to keep the reader engaged.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I 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.

An insightful portrayal of love, family, loss and loneliness.

Speak to Me perfectly captures what it can be like to be lonely in a relationship and how an addiction of sorts can be destructive. Both Susan and Kurt are oblivious to how their respective additions are hurting their partner. Susan is compelled to find an old briefcase, seemingly lost in a recent house move, containing old love letters from an old boyfriend, no matter what the cost. Even after breaking in to the old house and getting a visit from the police, Susan's quest to find the case isn't halted.

Similarly, Kurt constantly ignores Susan whilst engrossed in his phone. Simply becoming a silent pair of eyelids to Susan.

It's interesting to see that Kurt becomes less and less attractive in Susan's descriptions as their relationship gets worse.

The book serves as a warning about the pitfalls of ignoring our loved ones and dwelling in the past. Also in not communicating. Susan lost her first love Antony by not communicating her love for him properly and Susan and Kurt part ways partly because Kurt starts to ignore Susan whilst spending time on his phone and Susan also doesn't take the time to properly communicate with him either as each is completely consumed by their own obsessions.

Loss is also a theme in the book, Kurt with the phones that Susan constantly hides or destroys (which to me seems the perfect metaphor for their lost communication) and Susan her lost love and her and Antony's unborn daughter . I feel that the case was a physical representation for Susan of all she'd lost before and this was something physical she might be able to control so getting it back was imperirtive to her.

A thought provoking read.

I am a huge fan of Paula cocozza’s debut novel “How To Be Human”, a haunting, voice-led novel about a woman unravelling, and hoped for more of the same from “Speak To Me”, in which Susan tries to wrest back control of her phone-obsessed husband while their shoddy new-build house decays around them. The voice is indeed great, but I found Susan’s secondary obsession - some old love letters that went missing in the house move - quite boring to read about. I ended the book feeling our central character doesn’t really understand herself and no real development had taken place across the course of the story. Interesting but frustrating, and feels like a downgrade from the authors debut.

This book simmered and smouldered. A close look at family life, love, loss, obsession - and the insidious presence of smart phones....

When Kurt's phone rings during sex - and he reaches to pick it up - Susan knows that their marriage has passed the point of no return. Since they swapped their family home for an 'executive' newbuild on an estate still under construction, she has felt ever more aware that there is something missing in her life: the absence of any kind of meaningful communication with Kurt, who only has Facetime for Wendy (the nickname she has given to the ubiquitous phone), or her twin boys, with whom she communicates via notes left on the middle shelf of the fridge.

This sense of loss becomes increasingly focused on a cache of handwritten letters, from her first love, Antony, mementoes of a time when devotion seemed to spill out easily onto paper. Increasingly desperate and out of synch with the contemporary world, Susan embarks on a journey of discovery that will reconnect her to her younger self, while simultaneously revealing her future.

"He is always the latest him, whilst I remain the same old me."

At first, I was a little worried this was going to be another kettle-logic story romanticising the old days where there were no phones but also no antibiotics or vaccines. I wasn't totally wrong, but there was definitely some nuance and substance to this story.

Speak to Me makes some touching and beautiful observations about connections, and how lost people can feel even with people all around them. It looks at the dangers of people who spend too long curating a meaningful social media feed rather than living a happy life, who have more followers than friends.

We get on deeply personal terms with Susan right away - our first meeting with her being during an intimate moment with her husband. Although I found it very hard to connect with her - her narration was extremely disjointed, feeling like parts of different stories, blurring the lines between her journals and letters with the present day which just didn't work for me. I found Susan herself very stubborn and condescending - she blamed technology and contemporary life for her problems rather than addressing the issues and boundaries in her relationship, she didn't really go through any personal development and refuses to adapt or grow in any way. I did feel her frustration, her loneliness, her desire for connection but I just couldn't find my way past her rigidity and coldness. Although, I definitely joined in her in her deep love for books.

A slow story, filled with snapshots of domestic life and days gone by, lots of little moments that fit together to create a picture - with a painstaking attention to detail that makes the scenes so vivid. A socially observant and entertaining story with lots of heart.

"Funny how persuasive the most implausible hope can be. Actually, it is not funny."

I think the essence of this book lies between the written lines. Paula Cocozza writes the the story from the perspective of Helen. Through her internal monologue and first-person perspective, we're looking at the lack of closeness in her marriage that the protagonist blames on her husband's love for tech. But that's not the other bond that seems broken - there are also kids who are getting more independent, as well as the past relationship that didn't really end but gets more and more romanticised and idealised, the more time passes.

This is the story about loneliness but also inability to communicate hurt, sadness and longing. However, if only read at a face value, it seems chaotic, incoherent at times.

Set in 2011, Speak to Me is about a marriage in which one partner is so absorbed in his phone he appears unaware that the other is becoming obsessed with her first love after a case stuffed with letters disappears when they move.
Susan and Kurt live in different worlds: he’s a techie developing software for smartphones whose every waking hour seems to be devoted to scrolling; she’s a librarian whose phone is used to make calls but little else. When he reaches for his phone during sex, it’s the last straw. Susan becomes increasingly fixated on the lost case, remembering her relationship with the young man who had been so much more open than she had.
Susan's an engaging narrator, conscious that she’s out of step with this new world of life spent immersed online, hiding the books Kurt feels they should recycle. She’s desperate for meaningful contact with Kurt who’s barely present in this novel just as he is in Susan’s life. As she becomes increasingly obsessed with Antony and his letters, it’s clear that she's not entirely engaged with this marriage either. Both witty and heartrending, Cocozza's novel smartly explores the consequences of not being fully present in a relationship, beautifully summed up by its striking jacket.

Susan and Kurt and their children move to an executive home on a new estate and at the same time their marriage begins to unravel, as Kurt becomes increasingly distant, obsessed with his phone and buried in his work. As their children also grow older and more distant, leaving Susan increasingly alone, she in turn becomes obsessed with her past and in particular a leather case containing letters from a former boyfriend which has gone missing in the move. The novel examines loneliness, obsession, and alienation, and how lives once happy and well-lived can descend into chaos and delusion.

I really enjoyed reading Speak to Me by Paula Cocozza and its portrayal of a woman whose marriage is unravelling so she looks back to rekindle a past relationship.

This is a brilliant novel about modern day life and our obsession with our phones.

Heart-breaking in places and funny in others, it gives us all an opportunity to reflect on our own lives and our own obsessions with our phones and technology. You can't help but feel for the main character.

Highly recommended.

This book details the life of Susan, Kurt, and Kurt’s phone named Wendy. The novel begins when an intimate moment is interrupted by the beeping of Wendy. In fact Wendy is so prolific in their relationship Susan even has an album entitled “Kurt on his phone in Beautiful Places.” This is a humorous look at society’s current obsession with mobile phones, but actually has a really serious point to make about addictions to technology.
The first time Kurt ever expresses emotions to Susan, is via text, when he tells her that he loves her. And he seems unable to communicate in any meaningful way without Wendy. As their marriage begins to fall apart, Susan becomes equally obsessed with a briefcase, and its contents, that has gone missing. It knaws away at her, until she becomes convinced that Kurt has taken it and starts obsessing over its contents. She returns to her old haunts, trespassing in her old house, in an attempt to hang onto the past she believes she has lost.
Once we learn of the contents of the case, we start to really feel for Susan. I don’t want to spoil the plot too much, but it does become apparent that the thing she now detests ie. Wendy, could have changed the direction of her entire life.
There is no happy ever after in this book. This is not a rosy cheeked, picnics by the river, vows of undying love, type of relationship love story. This is realistically messy and depressingly relatable. This is about the paths that could have been created if a split second decision had been different.
I hate romance books, but I loved this. This is not your everyday love story. This is raw and traumatic. I NEVER cry at books, but this one really touched me, and made me sob. I hate to make the obvious pun, but this one really did ‘speak to me.’ The line, “sometimes I see vividly the life that might have been,” really resonated with me, and this is a book that will stay with me for a long time.