Well written and suspenseful in an interesting way. The characters, plot, and ending felt underdeveloped though.

This is pitched as "Richard Russo meets Tom Perrotta", so I was automatically interested - Russo is my favourite author, and I've really enjoyed everything of Perrotta's that I've read.

SMALL HOURS is a very good debut novel, about a family's secrets that come to light over the course of a single day. Tom and Helen are relatively successful, but the former's indiscretion comes to exert a considerable, chaotic and damaging impact on their family life.

Well-written, well-paced, and populated by interesting characters. Recommended.

Unique premise--a story told over the course of a day. I liked it but didn't love it because of something that is a huge pet peeve for me--if these characters would have actually talked to each other, the whole thing could have been avoided. It just seemed a bit contrived overall.

Kitses does an amazing job of ratcheting up the stakes and the tension. It's compulsively readable and hard to put down. Definitely recommended

I wasn't able to finish this book, so I decided not to review it on my site or any of the major retailers/Goodreads.

Small Hours by Jennifer Kitses is an intense read that is sure to leave a mark on the readers.

Given the short and undescriptive blurb of this book, I wasn't sure what exactly to expect from it. Though sceptical, I decided to give it a try as it kind of intrigued me. Anyway, reading a book without knowing anything about the story is quite exciting, at least for me, so I went ahead and read it. By the quarter mark, I was glad that I did so as this book turned out to be an excellent example of what exactly a contemporary fiction book should be like.

I liked the plot and the basic premise of the story. It was a very intense read about the complexities of relationships and how people change with time and their thought-process and reactions get impacted accordingly. The characterization was brilliant and though I didn't connect tot he characters personally, I was very engaged int heir day-to-day life.

The beginning of the story was very engaging and the ending was utterly perfect, it was so good in fact that I read the last part thrice to soak it all in - the way issues were confronted and handled. I loved the inner conflicts in this book and really marvelled the author's writing style.

If you want to read one contemporary fiction this year, make sure this is it.

A lot is going on in the lives of the two main characters, Tom and Helen - almost too much, regarding the fact that the story only tells about 24 hours of their suburban life. Nonetheless, it’s never hard to believe - theirs is a day that all comes together. I kept thinking about the choices they make, which means ‘Small hours’ is a novel about life, everybody’s life. It was almost like I wasn’t reading a book, just watching people going by in the nieghbourhood Kitses describes. The ending is perfect, because it isn’t an ending as such, more of a possibility. Just like life itself.

I tried so hard to read this book and eventually DNFed it. Ultimately I think the issue was me and not the book. I suspect that this would be far more compelling to middle class married suburban adults, but as someone who 500% cannot relate to the characters or plot at all, there isn't much to pull me in I'm afraid.

Published by Grand Central Publishing on June 13, 2017

Small Hours is a slice-of-married-life family drama. The slice consists of an eventful, life-changing day for both spouses, although since they spend little of that day together. They make independent decisions after experiencing unrelated events, but their decisions are ultimately connected.

Tom and Helen Foster have moved to the “achingly quiet” town of Devon in the Hudson Valley to raise their two daughters. Tom, a wire service editor, is increasingly overwhelmed by anxiety while Helen, a graphic designer, works off her anger by punching a bag at the local gym.

Tom and Helen are keeping secrets. Tom’s anxiety concerns a recently born daughter Helen doesn’t know about. Tom would like to play an active parenting role with that daughter, just as he does with his other daughters, but he fears Helen would leave him if he told her the truth.

Helen knows about Tom’s affair and thinks she has moved past it. Still, Helen is consumed with anger. The anger is partly driven by credit card balances she hasn’t told Tom about, and partly by the difficulty of balancing the demands of her underpaid work-at-home job with the demands of her daughters. But Helen also feels her life spinning out of control in small ways that make her question her fitness as a mother, including her run-in with a couple of teenage girls she dismisses as white trash.

The slow build of tension makes the reader understand that the situations in which Tom and Helen find themselves are unsustainable. Tom’s bond with Donna’s child is growing, as is Donna’s concern about her daughter’s “secret daddy.” Tom and Helen are increasingly on edge as the story progresses. The characters are searching for a happy ending to their stories, but it seems likely that one character's happiness will hurt at least one other character. How all of that will shake out is the primary question that drive the plot.

Neither Helen nor Tom are ideal people. Helen is remarkably needy. Her needs are unfulfilled, and probably incapable of being fulfilled. Tom is remarkably selfish, as he demonstrates repeatedly. The story doesn’t make for pleasant reading because Helen and Tom are at their worst and I can’t imagine wanting to know either of them. The story nevertheless has value because Jennifer Kitses opens a window on the problems and attitudes of realistic characters. Even the secondary characters (particularly a teenage boy who stands up for Helen, a “good kid who made bad choices”) are recognizable as people, not just stereotypes inserted to move the story along.

The novel ends with Helen and Tom making decisions. They have more decisions to make, and their decisions will have consequences, but Kitses leaves it to the reader to imagine how it will all play out. Small Hours is a novel of small moments, but it offers big insights into the choices that are forced upon people as they struggle to decide how their lives should proceed.

RECOMMENDED

Over the course of one long day and night, we follow the life of a married couple, Tom and Helen. They moved to the countryside with their young twin daughters after Helen discovered Tom had a brief affair with his boss.

Helen still works in advertising, exhausting work and part-time only in pay. Tom is a journalist in the city, waking early - often sleeping on the sofa fully dressed - to commute back and forth each day.

Both Tom and Helen are tired from moving, working, parenting, worrying about money and keeping secrets from each other.

Helen is angry at how motherhood and moving has isolated her and devalued her. Tom is overwhelmed by the energy it takes to keep his secret hidden. They are worried the people they have become will destroy any last remnants of affection between each other. They are worried they’re not sure if they even care anymore.

Small Hours is a frighteningly realistic portrayal of early parenthood. The weight of the little things drag Tom and Helen’s tired minds to the edges of sanity, making them reach out for the easy road, longing for understanding, desperate to rest in each other but too afraid that open communication will destroy their marriage. It also feels as if there isn’t time for their relationship to have a space of its own.

I can’t say I enjoyed the book because it isn’t fun to read, it is, however, honest and therefore a little painful; compelling because their worries are both small and life-shattering. How can the thoughts of the small hours be reconciled with the day? What constitutes betrayal? What is really involved in being a good worker, a good spouse, a good parent?

Small Hours comes out in December, just in time to nudge readers into new year resolutions they might be able to stick to. Insightful and awkwardly apt, Small Hours is a portrait of a couples’ struggle to live up to their good intentions, provoking the reader to question what really matters.

This was one of those books that wasn't great but it wasn't bad. Suburban life upheaval but not necessarily gripping.

A thrilling read with complex characters and dynamic storylines. The book successfully melds characters stories together while maintaining an exciting and detailed account. Very good read. This is an author I will keep my eyes on.

Told in one single day, this story is both well written and heartfelt. What happens to a couple when secrets begin to take over their lives?

After moving to what Helen believes to be the ideal neighborhood, Tom and Helen raise their daughter and slowly realize that the everyday struggles of work and raising a child have created a slight rift between the two of them. The neighborhood is not what it seems to be and Tom’s relationship with another woman, one that results in another daughter almost the same age as the one he has, forces him to keep the secret long after he intends to.

What an interesting story. It’s told hour-by-hour and all in one day so what we see as a reader is the breaking point, really. The point where Helen and Tom have to come to grips with their reality and it’s not pretty but it’s very honest and very real. As readers we get to share in their regret and their fears. I really enjoyed the writing and the deep looks into each of the main characters. There are no “bad guys” here. Each character is trying his or her best to be the best person they can be. It’s a struggle but not impossible.

Lovely. Small Hours is lovely read with deeply flawed characters and a story that’s told in a quiet but direct way. I recommend it.

Relationships cannot flourish without communication and it's clear Tom and Helen missed the memo. The couple does not communicate and withholds important information from one another (they don't appear to be compatible). Helen has serious anger issues and Tom has a secret life. It seems their motto is "any issue worth debating is worth avoiding altogether." Their life would be sooooo much simpler if they just spoke honestly to one another (but then there wouldn't be a book I guess). Small Hours is an interesting and quirky kind of novel. At times I wanted to scream (and slap) Tom and Helen, especially as the tension builds throughout the day. Ugh...this book has heaps of likes and I honestly thought I was going to love it (and I wanted to)...but I didn't. I found the main characters kind of blah (especially Tom) and the ending disappointing and unresolved. Now don't get me wrong, I like Kitses's powerful writing -- I mean she was able to bring out a haywire of emotions out of me. In other words, I would read something new from her in the future.

If you are having a bad day and want to feel like others are worse off than you, then read this book. It is unrelentingly depressing. Well-written but at some point, I wished the characters had just binge-eaten chocolate. Which is what I had to do after finishing it. I did care about the characters despite their pathological approach to living. But one day in their lives felt like an eternity.

Small Hours from Jennifer Kitses examines 24 hours difficult hours in the life of a family of four. The novel argues that with both parents working, juggling job demands, conflicting schedules, no support network and the high cost of child care, it’s inevitable that internal tensions and external pressures make daily life an obstacle course to be overcome, repeatedly,

Helen and Tom were New Yorkers who decided to move to Devon, a small town that seemed to promise the sort of life they wanted. Devon, “an exurb,” is “in the Hudson Valley, but farther out than most commuters were willing to manage–ninety five minutes to Grand Central.” Add that up, and it’s more than a three hour commute daily for this pair.

Helen was the one who iniatated the idea to move to Devon, and at first the town seemed idyllic and affordable:

On their first trip out here, he’d browsed in the used bookstore; Helen wandered along the little street of art galleries. There was a dive bar, a nice bar, and a vegetarian restaurant. Even the stores that sold bespoke denim and artisanal fennel products had seemed like a good sign.

The reality is far different. Now two years later, in the economic downturn, many businesses in town have closed, and both Helen and Tom’s NY jobs were impacted. Helen who was a full-time graphic designer is now working “on contract and off-site, for a lot less money.” Tom lost his job, and after being unemployed for a few months he now works for a newswire service.

Tom and Helen managed to hang onto their home. Barely. Their home is still underwater, and Tom realizes that they’re a pay check away from this house of cards tumbling. Meanwhile Helen, who’s been putting the preschool fees for their three-year old twins onto a series of credit cards, is desperately avoiding the school administration as she can no longer pay the fees. Of course, this cannot continue; something is going to happen, and over the course of 24 hours, Tom and Helen each face a crisis.

We follow both characters over the course of a day: Tom, whose job isn’t exactly secure, begs off some time to take care of some personal business. I won’t say what that is, but I will say that Tom made a horrible mistake some time before and now he has to either ‘put up or shut up’ as the saying goes. Tom’s crisis is very concrete: a horrible moral dilemma and a situation which is going to cause a lot of unhappiness before it’s resolved.

Helen’s crisis, on the other hand, is much more existential. She doesn’t have questions about her marriage, but she does have questions about her entire life. While she loves her children, she’s not exactly enamored with the role of motherhood. She works from home, and this conflicts with the needs of her children. At one point, she plops the twins in front of the television in order to work and carries on. Helen as a character is the more problematic of the two. She seems to be more of a neurotic mess than anything else, although I can accept that the family’s situation may partially have driven her to that point. She is very unhappy: she hates the town she insisted that they move to, she hates most of the neighbours…. There’s no easy fix here.

Helen and Tom, as created, are two individuals who happen to share the same house. After reading the book, I wondered why these two were married to each other as they haven’t so much grown apart as become emotionally distant roomies. Tom and Helen are in their 40s, and their lives are depicted as joyless drudgery. If this is a fair depiction (and I suspect it may be) then Small Hours is a commentary on the sad empty lives of America’s middle class young families who struggle from day-to-day like frantic hamsters on activity wheels that go nowhere.

Small Hours is being compared to the works of Richard Russo and Tom Perrotta and while I understand such comparisons are helpful when trying to attract an audience to a debut novel, such comparisons can also backfire and not be much a favour to a new author who should be appreciated on their own terms.

For animal lovers: I immediately disliked Helen for firing a water gun at squirrels for entertainment, and later a lost dog in the neighbourhood meets a sad fate. Yes a spoiler, but some readers, including me, want to know about situations involving animals. The neglect, actual and possibly symbolic, of the dog was just another contributing factor which made me ask: what the hell is wrong with these people???

Review copy

This is a well-written book about fairly average, flawed people. Tom has been keeping a huge secret from Helen and it's affecting both of them. Helen has a restless feeling and anger that she tries hard to control.

The story is interesting and the narrative keeps the reader wondering what will happen when the secrets come out. What will happen with their jobs, their marriage. Unfortunately (to me), the author chose to lead up to the point of revelation but then stop. We don't know the answers, we can only draw our own conclusions somehow. It was a disappointing end, but I enjoyed the book.

An overview of the life of Tom and Helen is told in between another plot line which describes a 24 hour period in their lives. A period in which every bad decision that could be made by each of these people is made. Both of these people are the most irritating and frustrating characters that ever graced the pages of a book.

Tom is a cheater and a stupid one at that. His "boss", "woman he cheated with" and "mother of his third child" first says she's going to have an abortion and then decides to keep the child, but raise it all on her own. Tom wants to be in the child's life and she says okay. She does not need his financial support, but agrees the child needs a father figure. He neglects his job and his other children to be with this child. Why?

Helen is in the words of Prince "just like my mother, she's never satisfied". She just wants and wants. She's quit her job to freelance and stay home with the children and can't handle it. They have moved to the burbs into a house they can't afford, way overpaid and can't get out of the house without losing a ton of money. All because Helen wanted to. Now, she doesn't like the neighborhood (um, perhaps she should have checked it out instead of just relying on the picture of the house) and wants to move, loss or not.

I spent most of the time while reading this book frustrated because these people, like I said, made every bad choice they could make. While the book was well written (the author certainly had my emotions going) I just could not stand the characters. At all.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Tom starts his day by taking his three-year-old daughters to see the sunrise. Then he goes into the office, where he is a news editor. His mind isn't on his work though. He's thinking about the other three-year-old daughter he has with his former boss and mistress in the city. Meanwhile, his wife, Helen, picks up their twin daughters from preschool, where their tuition is late. She then has an altercation with some teenage girls, which frightens her daughters. She spends the rest of her day in fear of the teenagers retaliating in some way, while also working from home. Tom and Helen live their lives full of secrets told in this hour by hour story.

This story was a little slow at the beginning. It was describing the mundane activities of their lives, such as Tom's commute into work and Helen's workout in the gym. Also, the story wasn't just about what was happening during that day. There was a lot of background of Tom's past relationship, so it wasn't all told in the present. I think this information could have been given in a different way, so that it didn't have to flash back to years ago, but could stay within the 24 hours of the story.

This story was well written. The hourly account of the couple's lives is a unique form. I really liked the tension at the end. However, it was left on a cliffhanger which could have been more dramatic.

This review will be posted on my blog on June 18, 2017.