A family drama surrounding seven siblings in the early twentieth century. Back and forth their past and present each sibling have their own pov of their memories with their mother's mysterious death, her sickness, and their sister's teenage pregnancy.

I loved the entanglement in the story of the characters and the time lines between their past and their present. And I enjoyed listening to the audiobook.

Thank you Netgalley and RB Media for this advance listener copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this book. It would be a great read for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Kristin Hannah. It fell right in line with their work, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.

Chorus is a story about family, loss and redemption. The story is centered around seven siblings, Wendy, Sam, Lane, Henry, Mave, Bette and Jack. It is told in alternating timelines and showcases the life of each sibling equally. As children, the Shaw's suffered the loss of their mom, who clearly had an undiagnosed case of bipolar disorder, back when the stigma of mental health disorders was high. Mrs. Shaw suffered from bouts of mania, followed by crippling stages of depression, which eventually lead to her death by suicide. The story follows the children through their early lives, the death of their mother and into adulthood following the death of their father. It's a family/historical drama that made me laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously. I loved the Shaw children. They were very authentic.

I would really recommend this book to readers that enjoy drama, family stories and historical fiction. It was a really quick listen at just over six hours and I listened to it in a day. Four stars. I did win this book on Goodreads as well and will be reading it again.

Told in alternating (and not in order) timelines spanning from 1901-1959, the 7 Shaw siblings and their father all display very different emotions, raw feelings and life outcomes based on their own version of how/why their mother died, they grappled with how their mother felt about them and just couldn’t let go of confused feelings when a young sibling became pregnant and was married off.
The writing is undeniable — Rebecca Kauffman is very talented. The love and bond this family has is flawed but real.
For me, however, it was not an enjoyable read… but not in the way you might think. It’s just all very tragic and depressing at times, hearing the same story from different angles. But that doesn’t mean I would star this any less. If you are looking to feel something deep, then this book is for you.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Chorus is a family saga with a jumping timeline that spans from 1919 to the 1950s. The seven Shaw siblings’ lives have been marked by two traumatic events: their mother’s possible suicide and their sister’s teenage pregnancy.

I really enjoyed listening to this books as it switched perspectives and times. Chorus makes you realize that there are no absolute truths in family history.

A well written family drama that spans generations. We hear from various members of a family who have lost their mother, and how her death affects them. I listened to this and the audio was generally good though adults pretending to be kids is always a bit weird. Overall I’d recommend as a good family drama.

My first book by Rebecca Kauffman. I was drawn in by the beautiful cover and the promise of a multigenerational family story full of pain, redemption and complicated sibling relationships. Usually this type of story is right up my ally but I had a hard time connecting to the characters or getting drawn into the narrative. Okay on audio this wasn't a memorable read for me. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to listen to an early review copy!

Wow. This book gave me all the feels. I felt sad,happy,anger,despair. It held me captive and I didn’t want to stop. Journeying with the Shaw family till they came to their resolutions as a family was hard and wonderful. Wendy was probably my favorite character out of all the siblings. She had so much stacked against her and so many reasons to hate the world, yet somehow she kept going and did right by her family. Even when they didn’t want her. She had such a huge heart and so much love.

This is the story of the Shaw family- seven siblings raised on the family farm. It alternates between their childhood years and into adulthood. It is a literary, character driven novel that was enjoyable to listen to, although there are so many characters it was sometimes hard to follow at times.

The book shows how the death of their mother when they were children affected each of them. It has themes of sibling bonds, fatherly love, teenage pregnancy, addiction and guilt. A family has so many layers and this book unpeels all of them, revealing the Shaw family to the reader.

Pick this up if you enjoy a slow burn, character driven family story.

I received a copy of the audiobook, Chorus by Rebecca Kauffman from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. **Please see trigger warnings before reading or listening to this book. **
Overall, I found some aspects of Chorus to be enjoyable but there was a lot going on within the story and as such I found the characters to not be as fleshed out as they could have been. Although I enjoyed hearing each member of the family's perspective on both their mother’s death and the teen pregnancy within the family, the unique perspectives ended up getting a little harder to discern as the story went on. Additionally, the story tried to cover a lot of different topics and events, which ended up brushing over the significance of some of the events or neglecting to fully elaborate on the overall effect. I found some of the family members to be more fleshed out and multiple plot lines to be left unfinished at the end of the recording which made the ending feel unsatisfactory.

Although I understand that the novel takes place before the 60s, I do find the lack of diversity to be a bit concerning. As far as I could tell based on what I heard every character seemed to be white and straight. For a novel that is to be published in March of this year, I find this to be something that should not have been overlooked.

Furthermore, although the story covers topics or events such as teen pregnancy, suicide, addiction, the great depression, and World War two among others. Besides the suicide plot line most of others seemed to have not been developed thoroughly. Although Kauffman does try to approach the teen pregnancy of one of the sisters in a respectful manner and within an approach that I assume would have been used at the time, the overall impression, and implications of it just did not explain enough nor did the later revelations about it get discussed enough to fully understand the consequences.

Most of the siblings have very noticeable trauma because of their mother’s suicide and the war. However, in the case of some of the siblings it does not seem like it was resolved by the end of the recording unfortunately.

To conclude, I highly recommend looking up the trigger warnings for this novel before reading or listening to it. I will state that the narrator was excellent and made the story bearable.

Chorus was a tough book for me to get all the way through.. But I did finish reading this story. Unfortunately, I felt like the story was a downer without any tangible resolution for better lives. During their young and formative years the children mostly had to fend for themselves. It seems clear that the father is struggling with financial issues and is systematically having to sell off parcels of his land.

In the meantime, we have a mentally ill mother who, won’t/can't get out of bed. So the children are left to their own devices. So while it may seem that the lack of a loving mother figure was to blame for everything that went wrong, it was also true that the father was buried in his daily work life and seemed to have little meaningful interaction with his children.

The best I can say here is that this story made me feel sad. I was sad that the father couldn’t rise above his wife’s mental illness. There didn’t seem to be any hope of alleviating her symptoms of deep debilitating depression. In the meantime the children always seemed to be left to their own devices.

I can say is the story is truthful as far as the circumstances. And yet, I kept wondering, when is someone going to step-up and be a real parent figure to these children? I felt bad that the best thing that could happen to this family was that the mom be placed in a facility, so maybe the home-life of the family could improve and achieve some normalcy. The failures of this family, and the lack of any outside assistance, made me feel as though the story was taking place a hundred years earlier and at a time when severe depression was not treated in a viable way. And yet ... it is true that even today countless cases of deep depression go untreated, with tragic results.

My heart went out to the children, especially the ones who suffered throughout their lives as a result of their upbringing and/or lack thereof. I did read the book description before requesting this book. However, I think it was the title that fooled me. I thought of "chorus” as being something where people work together and achieve a beautiful sound.

So while this story portrays something that could happen, after awhile I lost hope that the children would be rescued from the lack of any meaningful parental relationships. I gave the book three stars mainly because the writing itself was good.

I loved the concept and the flow of this book, but I just don't think there was enough space in under 300 pages to establish a connection with any of the siblings in a meaningful way. It's hard to have that many perspectives and not feel like some were neglected for the sake of the others. Ultimately I did enjoy this book, and I think Rebecca Kauffman has a talent for finding the pulse beneath the surface of families.

Really enjoyed the Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman, so I was really excited when I saw this one and I got approved for this one. Kauffman just has a great way of story telling. We follow seven siblings and their parents but I didn't feel lost at any moment. It jumps between timelines amd we get a look into their lives when they are growing up with a sick mother who eventually passes away and see them again quite a few years later. Really enjpyed this, also is very well narrated