Another great read by Catherine Newman. Set against the backdrop of a week on Cape Cod, Sandwich is a heartwarming portrayal of family dynamics, motherhood and the menopause. The story follows Rocky, a relatable main character, as she deals with the challenges of getting older and her family growing up. It’s both a touching and humorous book that will make you think about your own family and life!
Highly recommended for readers who enjoy captivating and emotionally resonant reads

A glorious book. Just the most brilliant portrayal of family, life, motherhood, menopause, mistakes, regrets and joy. I think i loved it even more than We all Want Impossible Things. The pacing, the dialogue and the descriptive quality of one week on Cape Cod was all perfectly formed. Rocky is a relatable and believable protagonist. It will make you laugh and cry and think. Highly recommend.

Catherine Newman has a very specific writing style that moves away from the 'He said, she said' standard fictional dialogue with a narrative that requires focus. It's a style I've not seen to often but one I really enjoy.

In Sandwich, the story revolves around Rocky (Rachel) and her family as they spend a week in a beachhouse on The Cape. It's highly emotional, with Rocky reflecting on the fact that her parents and children are older and do not need her in the way they did 10 years ago.

It's a great read, although quite sad in places. Im not sure if I particularly like Rocky - she's a meddler and a little narcissitic - but her actions come from the heart and you know, as you read on, that she's got some major emotional baggage.

Like her previous novel, food plays an important role and the descriptions of the sandwiches alone had me salivating.

I also loved the scenery setting of Cape Cod. It sounds a beautiful place to visit and made me long to feel the sand under my feet and hear the ocean again (30 days and counting!)

A great read with some interesting subject matters, Catherine is an auto-buy author for me now, I can't wait to see what she does next.

Trigger warning: Miscarriage

Thanks to the publisher for approving my request on Netgalley and also to Alison for sending me a proof!

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This was a beautifully written gentle novel about Rocky and her family who spend their usual week long vacation at Cape Cod.
The book follows the interactions between Rocky and her calm husband Nick plus their two grown up children and Rocky’s aging parents.It is about menopause and past regret,a long term marriage,feeling the loss of your children’s childhood but embracing their present selves and about the realisation that your parents are getting old and more frail.It is about family and life and it’s myriad of emotions.It is about the seaside and being together,the old and the young and those sandwiched between..It made me laugh out loud especially at Rocky’s battle with the menopause symptoms(which I empathised with too having been through it)It also left me heartbroken and fully invested in this flawed but incredibly close and loving family.
A wonderful read

Back in 1931 RC Sherriff had his affectionate novel about the "drama of the undramatic", The Fortnight in September,, recounting in detail a family's annual trip to the same seaside resort in England published. This novel, Sandwich seems like a modern update based in America but delaing with the same landscape of describing an ordinary family and their ordinary hopes, worries, petty grievances and annoyance, love an daffection for one another as they have their annual weekly coastal holiday. Nothing of much import really happens. The book is comical in places. However, for me it lacks the charm of Sherriff's book, perhaps because it is contemporary. I have enough family minuitiae to deal with in my own life without reading about someone else's! The book is well written but didn't hit the mark for me in my present state of mind.

I loved We All Want Impossible Things so was excited to read Sandwich.
Every summer Rocky and her family- husband Nick, their adult children and Rocky’s parents spend a week in a beach rental on Cape Cod. In recent years they’ve been joined by their son Jamie’s girlfriend.
I absolutely loved this short novel which made me laugh so much but it’s also a moving and emotional read. I loved the Cape Cod setting, it’s a place where I spent a summer 35 years ago and I’d love to return. The author is so good at relationships and I particularly liked the portrayals of Rocky’s relationship with her husband, her daughter Willa and her parents. The descriptions of the menopause were brilliant, so true and made me laugh out loud. I loved spending time with Rocky and I felt the novel was over too soon. 4.5 stars
Recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

Catherine Newman has been one of my favourite writers for something like twenty years - and I adored We All Want Impossible Things - so when I say I was desperate to read this book... And I think I may have loved it even more than Impossible Things? Middle aged and menopausal Rocky is spending a week in Connecticut with her family - husband, almost-grown (and brilliant, charming) children, and, for a couple of days in there, her ageing parents.

Catherine Newman writes so brilliantly, wisely, kindly about hard things with such a light touch. This book made me laugh and cry. Everyone - including Chicken the cat - felt entirely real and I felt like I was on the vacation with them. I was bereft when I finished reading and had to return to real life.

Narrated by the self-deprecating Rocky with a pithy humour, Sandwich spans a week in the holiday let she and her husband have rented for almost twenty years. They and their grown-up children cram themselves into the tiny cottage, joined half-way through the week by Rocky’s parents. It’s a holiday like any other over the past two decades but by the time the family goes their separate ways, secrets will have been revealed, an understanding that somethings must end gained and the joy of new beginnings embraced.
Sandwich lives up to its blurb’s feelgood billing while dealing with issues of mental health, ageing and loss, unafraid to explore how it feels to be menopausal or reproductive health and the right to choose. Gazing at her children with adoration, Rocky remembers the early years of devastating exhaustion, the desperation for an uninterrupted night’s sleep and the constant anxiety of parenthood. When her parents arrive, she can hardly bare to witness their increasing frailty, well-practiced at anticipatory grief. She’s an engaging narrator, likeable and believable, given to a tactlessness that both amuses and embarrasses her children who adore her in return as does her husband despite frequent tongue lashings. A thoroughly enjoyable novel, which may not stay with me for long but comforting and entertaining, nevertheless, and far from frivolous, too.

Sandwich follows a family over the course of a week as they take their annual holiday to Cape Cod. There were some funny moments in this book and also some powerful themes. I did not love this book but can see that Catherine Newman’s writing is powerful and resonates with her readers.

This story really struck a chord with me, being mid 50s and menopausal! I really understood the character and what she was going through! A short story so read over 2 days! A great mixture of terrible teens, marriage problems and elderly parents, plus the dreaded menopause. Second book by this author, always enjoyable

I enjoyed Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things so I appreciated the opportunity to read her new novel - Sandwich. She captures what it's like to be a woman struggling with menopausal symptoms, marital strains, ageing parents, motherhood.

The most luminous, passionate account of family love I've ever read. Rocky, a self confessed narcissist aged 54 is the filling in the annual holiday sandwich that has her devoted elderly parents on one side, and her two grown up, and moved away, children, plus girlfriend Maya, on the other. Not to mention the huge old cat Chicken, who comes with them.

As they drift back into their usual routine - the beach tram at 1pm, fresh lobster, ice cream at the end - the family shimmers with life, joy and sadness. Huge secrets are finally released. Ricky's mom has a health incident, which shows the fragility of life. The possibility of new life points to the perpetuation of life.

Rocky is going through menopause with disbelief and hilarity at its embarrassments. Her husband Nick, the analytical sort, is not prone to sharing his feelings, and it causes occasional friction. Rocky swims, she loves, she grieves. What a wonderful portrait of mid life.

I gulped down this sandwich in two very satisfying bites.

This is a proper heartwarming, a family I felt I knew.
Tons of touching moments that are all so relatable, no matter what the topic was, marriage, babies, aging parents.
It made me all nostalgic for my own childhood and long for a sandwich on the beach. 😁
Very enjoyable