Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

The first of three translated French-Canadian reads I’ve read recently, and it was a bit of a miss for me unfortunately. I used to eat up books about middle and upper class people’s issues and inner lives, but the high levels of infidelity and sheer ignorance about their privilege just did nothing for me. I wanted to hear more about Celia and her grandparents’ salt water taffy business, not Adam whining about how he almost died (when Celia was the one truly injured) and talking about how demanding his job as a millionaire TV chef is. It could have done something really interesting with masculinity and mental health, but not one of the characters (bar Celia who we see for like 2 chapters) was redeemable to me, and the lack of awareness was painful. Adam’s partner Marion was honestly awful.

However, there obviously was something compelling about it as I did finish it. Nice translation by Susan Ouriou.