A haunting novel a book that drew me right in to the mind set of a young mother.A young mother who moved with her husband to a foreign country for his career.She lives a claustrophobic existence her life with her two children in their apartment knowing no one her husband is hardly ever home.As she deceased’s into mental illness you feel the panic her strange existence till finally she enters a hospital since she is no longer living in the real world.A heart wrenching look at a young woman whose life is out of her control could not stop thinking of her even when I had to put the book down.#netgalley #abramsbooks

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, Picador, and the author Kyra Wilder for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

The author puts the readers straight into the mind of the main character, and for me, this truly put me on edge throughout the whole book. This is a book that gives the readers a first class seat to one woman's decline into depression and psychological madness.

This book was uncomfortable to read, however it was a great read, and I truly recommend that you add this one to your TBR list and read it at your first opportunity.

Little Bandaged Days follows Erika, mother of two, moving to Geneva, Switzerland with her husband.

The books takes a rather strange construct, with Erika identifying and interacting with other people by using their initials - including her children. I suppose this is some kind of experiment about Erika pushing people away, but it got fairly annoying the deeper into the book I made it. These sorts of literary experiments can be done well and give a good payoff at the end, but this book fell short for me.

Erika doesn't know the language, and makes no effort at all to learn it. She allows herself to become more and more isolated from the world in which she finds herself, and while I get it's supposed to be about a woman slowly losing her grasp on her own mental health, I just can't feel terribly sorry for anyone who knows they need to change x in their lives in order to have a better life, but makes zero effort to change anything at all to get to that betterment, or at least make progress on it.

This popped up for me in the mystery/thriller category, but it's clearly a general/womens' fiction novel. It reads as if someone stepped up for a dare of writing about a woman spiraling into mental illness with the extra challenge of not naming names.

I did not like the ending, which I will not spoil, and this really sums up my review of this book: didn't like it. Clearly, it was not for me. Sorry.

Two stars out of five.

Thanks to Abrams and NetGalley for the review copy.

I was excited for the premise of this book, however it left m less than satisfied.
A mother is on the verge of a mental breakdown- if not already in one as her husband works full time and is never home to help.
I loved the idea behind this exploration of mental illness and feeling so overwhelmed but the book just didn't make sense. I finished it quickly because I skimmed over a lot of it.
Overall, I was left feeling empty after reading.

Thank you to Netgalley, Abrams, and The Overlook Press for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2/5 Stars

I had a really hard time with this book, especially because of my profession and background. Little Bandaged Days portrays a woman's struggle with mental health as she's isolated and attempting to raise her children. The story is a bit disjointed, and I wasn't sure if it was a purposeful decision of the author, what really confused me was the constant use of initials. I hope that this book further encourages people to seek mental health treatment when they need it, and encourages friends and family to provide that support when they see a loved one in need.

Very well written novel about a woman losing her mind. The novel is written in such a way as to experience and feel her descent into madness with glimpses of her in a mental institution. You are kept in suspense throughout the novel. I look forward to reading more by this author.

This debut is a slow descent into madness. When M is offered a new job in another country promising great things E does her best best as a wife to make sure all is taken care of. With their little son B and their ever busy daughter E, E tries to make the best of a lonely reality. She wants all things to be prefect and tries so hard but slowly gives into her dark mind. This is a slow build to make you question everything you have read. Thank you net galley for the opportunity to review this book.

I have waited a few days because I just really don’t know what to say about this book. I guess I still don’t. If you like a book that will keep you guessing after you finish then this is for you.
A mother moves with her husband and children to a new country where she does not k ow the language and does not attempt to learn it. Her husband is constantly at work or away for work and only comes home after she had gone to bed and is gone before she wakes. She is left alone with. a baby and a toddler all day every day. She must walk everywhere and has no way to communicate with others. She begins to lose her mind. She starts seeing things and hearing things and barely sleeps.
It was encouraging that the writer portrayed the mental illness which could have been postpartum along with other issues. I was just lost on what really happened and what was real and just her imagination. I kept reading hoping that the author would explain what was really going on but......
I didn’t really like the book but it did leep me reading hoping for more. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this, and I tried multiple times to really get into this book, but I just couldn’t. I really struggle with incorrect grammar or missing/misspelled words- the lack of quotations just did me in. I couldn’t seem to get past it. It made the story very hard for me to keep up with, because I kept thinking about the damn quotations 🤣
Hopefully the publishers will work this out before printing and release, so that others aren’t stopped by the same thing!

I really appreciate the opportunity to have read and reviewed this book. However, I struggled with the book from the very first page and feel I never did become engaged. It is very rare for me not to finish a book, even if I’m not enjoying it. However I had to put this one aside.

It was hard for me to read this book for several reasons:

1. I couldn’t connect to the characters when the young mother, Erika, address her family members using initials. To my understanding, the author wanted to show how the mother tried to distance herself from them, perhaps, because of her mental instability that moving to another country with all its challenges made it even worse.

2. This book made me feel claustrophobic. I just wanted to finish it as quickly as possible, that’s how bad it made me feel. Was I supposed to feel like that? Possibly, I just picked the worst time to read it.

3. I wasn’t happy with the ending at all. It left me hanging with mixed feelings and a lot of questions.

Overall, even though some parts of the book were written in an interesting language, I won’t be rereading this book anytime soon.

I’m not really sure what to say about this book. I understand the mental health aspect. I was happy to see a book written about it. This book shows the downward spiral a mother can face but I honestly wasn’t a fan of how it was written and the ending left me even more confused.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-copy of Little Bandaged Days!!

Erika and her family decide to move to Geneva for her husbands new job. She does not speak French and makes little attempt to learn how to do, so she becomes completely isolated and alone. The description of the book says she’s ‘falling into madness’, but postpartum depression is likely the answer here. Her husband works all hours and she has zero support system.

This is a well written book. I felt uncomfortable while reading it. It’s hard to believe that this is a first novel. I was always worried about the children and what might happen to them. Her husband doesn’t seem to pay any attention to her at all. She only names her husband and children by their initials, which was a bit hard to get used to.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this ARC In exchange for an honest review. I really struggled with this one. Not so much the actual story, but the writing. There are no quotation marks when someone is reading. First time I’ve ever encountered this and it was sometimes difficult to get thru.

Unique, dark and daring novel about one woman's self-destruction as a new expat in Switzerland.

I was really excited to get my hands on this book because I myself have lived in Switzerland for a few years, so being an expat in this country sounds very personal to me. In addition, one of my favorite books is Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum, which is also about a mother and expat in Switzerland. I'm glad to say that Wilder's new novel is delicious in very similar ways.

In Little Bandaged Days, Erika is having a hard time adjusting to her new life in Geneva with her husband and two little children. She is struggling with finding herself as a wife, mother, but also an expat with a new language, people and culture. She feels trapped and can't sleep at night, which is when the most honest and shocking thoughts come to her conscience.

I absolutely loved Erika's jounrey of self-exploration (not to falsely say self-discovery). Mental health and "losing one's mind" are at the forefront of this novel, all wrapped in absolutely beautiful language. Brutally honest and truly daring, Little Bandaged Days was a delightful read.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchnage for an honest review.

A tense, disturbing read. Erika, a young mother moves with her husband to Geneva where he has accepted a new job. His job is extremely demanding and soon Erika hardly sees him at all, morning or nights. Erikas entire focus is caring for her children, cooking, cleaning, shopping for food, taking them to the park and preparing the perfect dinners that eventually are never eaten. She is completely isolated in a foreign country slowly, maddeningly losing herself, her soul, her mind to the chaotic, aloneness.
This is a disturbing and uncomfortable read in-put-downable story.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my comments

Thank you to ABRAMS and Netgalley for the ARC.

A family moves to Geneva, Switzerland, for the husband’s job. He spends all his time at work while she is charged with taking care of their two young children.

The author assigning initials to her husband and children was a real turnoff and annoyed me right until the end of the book. Names conjure up different kinds of characters and help the reader see their good points and their flaws. I don’t know why the author used initials, but I know I’m not the only reviewer that it bothered.

Erika, the mother, doesn’t speak French, and doesn’t try to make friends or do anything to help herself adjust to this new living situation. Eventually she suffers from insomnia and starts a downward spiral into a nervous breakdown.

This was not a great time to read such a sad, claustrophobic book. It wasn’t entertaining, the narrator didn’t have much in the way of redeeming characteristics, and the ending was unsatisfactory.

This was an interesting premise but I feel that it was not executed well.
A woman moves to Switzerland with her husband and two young children. Her husband, stressed and busy with the responsibilities of his new job, leaves her alone more and more. With no one around to talk with or get support from, she begins exhibiting more and more signs of mental illness.
I was interested in the narrator, in how she viewed the world, and her life in general. Unfortunately because the book is written entirely from her point of view, you don’t know what is real and what is part of her illness. We also learn the names of minor characters- the boss, the assistant- but never the narrator or her family. That is a style that some readers prefer but it drove me nuts.
This review is longer than most of my positive reviews, because I feel as though the bones of a good book are there but the style was not a good fit for me.

Oh man. The premise of this book sounded so delightful. A mom in the verge of a breakdown. Caring for her little ones as a husband works full time. And. In a new country of all places. However this book left me feeling and reading it as just meh. And. The ending. That ending ..... I’m not sure what happened. Or. What I just read.

Kyra Wilder is definitely a writer. There are some beautifully written things in this, which add to the psychological thrill of it - you're reading beautiful words describing a terrible situation. Like this bit:

"The days melted into each other. I felt it overwhelming sometimes that I was expected, all the time, to be a person. I woke in pieces. I was a random collection of parts. One shoulder but not the other, one ear. The skin on my face was raw, peeled open. I was so tired that it was really like that. It won’t last I thought. This is a phase, this is only now and now isn’t always. This minute is only this minute and this minute is only one minute long."

This book almost...almost had it. It was a creepy read, definitely got under my skin, and I loved (and worried about) the main character so much. I worried about the kids, I worried about how isolated she was, and that all she had was the husband who was clearly not a great guy.

What threw me were the chapters written later - identified by italics, clearly of someone in a different place. It never really came together. It never jibed, and when I hit the ending I was surprised. Because someone who can write like this? You believe they will pull it together by the end, but in this case it didn't happen.