I love the premise of this book, it’s an amazing idea, and I feel proud to have read a book involving so many outstanding authors and with proceeds going to the Writers Guild. The writing was collaborative, and seamless.

There were some ‘stories’ I enjoyed more than others and I was keen to know which authors had written them. It was a surprise to find that this information was provided at the end.

I had questions throughout the book - why are they living here? But that was answered at the end.

I did enjoy the book, I felt some stories went on a little long. I also lost my way with the nicknames and would have preferred people to have been called by their actual names.

That aside, I would recommend and I felt that the book gave an accurate perspective on Covid-life for all of us.

I received this book from Netgalley for an honest, independent review.

Set on the rooftop of a tenement in Lower East Side during the early days of lockdown, residents come together to share stories. As the lockdown progresses, more neighbours join in, each with their own tale to tell.

What sets this story apart is that it has been crafted by over 30 literary legends, including Margaret Atwood and R.L. Stine, with the reader left guessing the authors of each chapter until the very end.

The central themes of the book revolve around the pandemic, community, and storytelling, but the characters explore a wide range of topics such as adoption, death, love, and racism, reflecting the diversity of the characters themselves.

The book took me a while to get into – I think this was due to there being so many writing styles, changing from chapter to chapter, and I was uncertain if it was meeting my expectations.

However, as the story progressed, my interest was piqued, especially in trying to decipher the authors behind each chapter.

The narratives range from heart-warming to shocking, making for an interesting read.

The book includes writing from: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Joseph Cassara, Jennine Capó Crucet, Angie Cruz, Pat Cummings, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Douglas Preston, Alice Randall, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, Caroline Randall Williams, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, and Meg Wolitzer.

This was a great experiment but it didn't really work. First of all, it came too late - people don't want to read about the early days of the pandemic right now. Secondly I feel like the book felt simultaneously disjointed and preachy and it was a giant miss for me.

Fourteen Days is a collaborative novel, in essence a collection of fourteen short stories by a number of award-winning authors including Margaret Atwood, Celeste Ng and Emma Donaghue.
Set during lockdown, I was excited to read this.
However, it didn't really live up to my expectations. Whilst the the general setting (an apartment block) worked , the stories themselves didn't flow particularly well and some of them seemed lacking.
The overall vibe was disjointed and I almost considered not finishing. However, I ploughed on, only to find the ending (don't want to give spoilers) a little predictable and I almost groaned out loud as I read it.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fourteen Days is an engaging book that although written by multiple authors reads as a seamless whole, weaving narratives into a memorial to a significant trauma in recent history - the Covid pandemic.

Cleverly using a single apartment block and it's isolated (and socially distanced) inhabitants to tell stories in the oral tradition of bygone eras, Atwood et al have created a complex web of interconnectedness.

The themes of the tales told are multifaceted like their characters and authors providing a real sense of America and it's melting pot of humanity.

Definitely a marmite read that will definitely have its audience out there. A group of amazing authors add to a collaborative story that will really draw you in.

This collaborative novel is set in a tenement building in New York during the recent pandemic and subsequent lockdown. The tenants meet each evening on the rooftop and tell stories. As the group grows, the tenants get to know each other, many of them had never spoken to each other before. It almost becomes party like as they enjoy drinks and food sitting on their mis matched and often broken chairs as they talk while socially distancing. Everyone has a story and each of them tell theirs over the fourteen days.
This book has some wonderful names from the literary world including John Grisham, Margaret Attwood, Emma Donoghue, Celeste Ng and Tess Gerritsen and there is a section at the end where it is explained who has written each section. There were thirty six authors involved in this work, so it is hard to identify any of them from this work. Some of the stories were wonderful and a lot were not so much. I don't think this type of writing actually worked. I was really looking forward to reading it and was left a little disappointed.

I think this will be a bit of a marmite book. Considering the vast number and range of genres of authors who collaborated on this work, I thought it gelled well but know others feel differently. Congratulations must go to Preston and Atwood for creating what I’m convinced will become a classic depiction of life during the Covid lockdown. At times a hard and challenging read, but all in all a readable book of short stories.
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own unbiased opinion.

I like what I read of this but I am afraid I couldn't get involved. I am not ready to read about lockdown it was too hard. The writing was good but the subject matter is too raw.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for a digital ARC in exchange for a review.

It's interesting seeing the COVID-19 pandemic start to filter into book releases when it still feels so recent. The idea of representing neighbours from different walks of life coming together to share their stories by calling upon different authors to write them is ingenious; the subtle shifts in writing style as you go through the book help to hold on to your interest. Some definitely work more than others, but that's always going to be the case when you have this many people involved in a project. I thought it was the right choice to not reveal who had written each section from the beginning or in chapter headings; having this information at the back means that, especially if reading a physical copy, you can choose to find this out before reading, but I preferred entering each new chapter blind. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, however; it felt a little on the nose and clumsily done.

This didn't gel as one book that well and the stories were more anecdotes and personal experiences than crafted stories. I wish the authors had been listed in order of their stories rather than alphabetical as that would have enabled readers to find and possibly buy backlist from them more easily. I saw the ending by accident and read back a bit and saw the twist, which I found quite creepy so I did abandon it I'm afraid.

Fourteen days is a compilation of short stories from an incredible compendium of authors glued together by Margret Atwood.

As the Covid lockdown hits in NYC, the residents of a decrepit apartment block realise that there is fresh air and companionship to be found on the roof of their building each evening. After the daily clanging of pots and pans to thanks medics, the residents set into a (socially distanced) rhythm of each telling stories of their life.

Fourteen Days is a mixed bag of short stories. I enjoyed the ‘glue’ that harnessed each of the oral untold stories to their neighbours by way of the building Superintendent. However, this ambitious project has so many authors involved that short stories are so short (and therefore plentiful) that they don’t hugely engage or work together to make a coherent whole. It feels like a case of too many cooks …

Much of the narrative is enjoyable and kudos to Attwood and colleagues for weaving it together but the sum of the parts is a little flat.

Thanks to Netgalley and yeh publisher for an advanced copy.

I love short stories and especially linked ones like you find in Fourteen Days, I also like the writing of a lot of the authors in this collection.
I also found it interesting as I'd been in America just as the pandemic started and recognised a lot of the background to the tales.
As ever not all the short stories were for me but as a collection they really worked, especially towards the end of the 14 days quarantine

This read too much like an ‘experimental’ anthology than a fully fledged collaborative novel. Many of the stories within it felt perfunctory and the ending rather hackneyed.

I had high hopes for this book. When I read the blurb I was so excited to pick it up. There are so many writers in this collaboration that I love - from Margaret Attwood and Celeste Ng and many others!
Unfortunately, the book itself did not live up to my expectations. While I enjoyed it, it did not give me the "Wow" factor that I was expecting. I was expecting this to be a 5 star read, but it actually only rates 3 stars for me.

Some of the stories were very basic - they didn't seem to have any particular point to them - I'm thinking in particular the story about the Lobster Rolls - maybe it just went completely over my head, but I really did not get it.
Some of the stories were very strange - in particular the story about the spider-girl! Very creepy but again I didn't really understand! If the point of this story was to creep the reader out, then it succeeded with me, but there didn't seem to be any "Story" there - just a weird character.

The ending of this book was completely predictable. I think I guessed what the ending would be very early on - it was obvious when no-one could really say how or why they were all living there - some of these people were extremely wealthy but somehow stuck in a dilapidated apartment block?

Overall this was a good read, but not as good as I had hoped. It was a bit of a let down for me because I was so excited by the premise.

I loved the idea of this one, a collaborative story.

I was a little disappointed to be honest. I’m not saying it was bad, it just wasn’t for me.

Some stories I loved, others not so much. But I think that was a given with how many different authors work was in there.

If you like short stories and anthologies this one will definitely be up your street. But for me, the format just didn’t work to my taste.

This is a clever idea brilliantly executed with a real twist. Over the course of fourteen days, a group of tenants from a New York building gather on the roof to applaud the emergency services during the early days of the Covid outbreak. As time passes they each bring a chair, a drink or whatever and tell socially distanced stories.

The whole is framed by the building "Super" who talks us through each day and has named the tenants - lady with the rings, Eurovision, Vinegar etc which allows us to form pictures of them. They start off fairly cold to each other but through the stories become closer. The stories vary from straightforward to downright weird but never boring.

I especially enjoyed the stories with the curse and the one by the Caretaker. We don’t know who writes each story till the end of the book and there are some incredibly stellar names here. I’ll reread a few of these now I know who the different writers are but I’d recommend reading it ‘blind’ to begin with.

An entertaining way to pass a few hours.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

Interesting premise and a hugely enjoyable read. Some of these authors were known to me, but others I hadn't read before so it definitely gave me an introduction to new to me authors with extensive back catalogues. Each storyteller had a unique voice and story to tell. Fourteen Days reminds us that there's more that binds us than separates us.

"The truth is, in normal times, we wouldn't give each other the time of day. We've got almost nothing in common, do we?"

It's one week into the COVID-19 lockdown in New York City when the new superintendent of a rundown Lower East Side apartment block begins spending her time on the rooftop. It's not long before other residents begin to join her. Initially, they all ignore each other, sitting the recommended six feet apart. Then, some of them begin to talk, sharing stories, both those of others and their own. Tales of love, life, death and everything in between abound.

As the days pass, and the number of cases and deaths ramps up, residents of different ages, backgrounds and walks of life start revealing more about how they've experienced life and how they view the world. All the while, the super sits and secretly records their conversations on her phone, while being reticent to reveal her own story.

With a mammoth 36 famous writers specialising in various genres taking part in this collaborative novel (including greats like Margaret Atwood, Celeste Ng, Tess Gerritson, John Grisham and RL Stine), I loved the concept of this book. Unfortunately, I like the IDEA more than the book itself. Some of the residents' stories are moving and interesting and others not so much. It feels like a collection of short stories that have a building in common.

I did love the 'twist' or reveal. I thought it was cleverly done and didn't pick up on the foreshadowing until much later in the novel. I wish there would have been a bit more in-depth character exploration with the super, which may have tied the narratives together coherently. It's not incoherent just slightly disconnected in some places.

A really interesting concept.

I really enjoyed this book. Set across 14 days at the start of the pandemic, it follows the residents of a New York high rise who are locked down and go up onto the roof at night to share stories from a safe social distance. The characters were varied and the stories ranged from touching to absolutely crazy. The over arching feeling of the book was community - the very thing we lost through the pandemic. All of these people from different walks of life with many different stories all sharing the need to not be alone. When human contact was taken away it was the one thing we all wanted and it's the same of the people living in this story. I loved the gimmick that it was all written by different authors and I have to say that worked pretty well (although there were a couple of chapters I found harder going than others). Overall I really enjoyed it and would recommend. Thanks to all of the authors, Chat to & Windus and NetGalley for the ARC.