This book didn't quite live up to my expectations. The concept was intriguing, but the focus strayed from the main character, Cat, to side characters and male figures in her life, which felt distracting. The plot sometimes came across as chaotic, with too many characters and perspectives that muddled the storyline. I was initially drawn to Cat and empathized with her, but as the story went on, that connection faded, especially with some of her choices that felt hard to relate to. Though Donovan was completely unlikeable, the writing was powerful - some parts were so visceral they made me feel queasy. Still, the ending lacked the resolution I wanted.

This is a story you didn't see coming. Both intriguing and heartbreaking yet in many ways relatable, Whitlock pulls you into what you first suspect will be an "Eat, Pray, Love" kind of novel because something much more complex and deeper. You will both love and hate the protagonist and once you pick the book up, you won't be able to put it down. "Lump" is a novel you will think about for months (maybe even years) after reading.

Grateful for the opportunity to dive into the ARC of this book, though it didn't quite captivate me enough to reach the final page.

Lump is about Cat, a thirty-something mother of two who finds out she's pregnant AND has breast cancer. Despite that bleak premise, I had the idea that this was a kind of dark comedy - in fact, the beginning of the book didn't dissuade me.

The problems weren't limited to tone, however. There were multiple perspectives, some coming in very late in the book, which diluted the focus. Not centering on Cat meant her storyline, the central plot, was not fully fleshed out and ultimately sidelined.

I was left wondering what the aim of the story was, as plot certainly seemed to be driving the book until it turned out not to have one.

An unfocused, haphazard story with no apparent theme or message or, indeed, satisfying conclusion.

Thanks NetGalley for the chance to read this LONG overdue ARC.

Didn't enjoy this as much as I expected to. Really interesting premise and maybe my expectations were just too high, but I feel like it never reached the peaks it promised. Not really about the main character, and tends to focus on the side characters or men in her life more than was necessary.

This was a great book! I very much enjoyed it and I look forward to reading the author’s next work! Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

This book had so much potential, but it left me wanting more. I love having the different POVs, but every single time it got interesting it would switch. I thought it was choppy and the pacing was wild. Super descriptive at first and then we are skipping ahead weeks and months. The ending was abrupt and felt rushed.

This is a serious book revolving around family, marriage, sickness and protagonist makes unlikely choices. The cover attracted me as well as the description. I found it entertaining, a bit slow at the start the middle to the end it was very fast paced and the story did not end as readers would expect and possibly like. Characters were not likeable.

Really great book with amazing characters and a great plot. Was easy to get into and it was very engaging. This is a book that I can see a lot of people in YA enjoy.

Great read, I’ve recommended it to all my friends.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I thought this was a very interesting read with some very unlikeable characters. I like to read complex situations and how they're handled, and if this is what you're interested in I would recommend.

Grateful for the opportunity to dive into the ARC of this book, though it didn't quite captivate me enough to reach the final page.

Lump is a stark and emotional novel about the devastating effect of cancer on the human mind and body, and Whitlock combines this ordeal with betrayal and failure of a marriage which gives us a double-whammy of tragedy for our poor protagonist, Cat.

The novel switches between characters to give us further insight into the workings of the mind's of each protagonist. Donovan, the sexually deviant and unfaithful husband, driven wild as his wife seemingly becomes a different person I the blink of an eye, leaving him reeling. Lena, the paid help who unwittingly becomes embroiled in their dramatic saga and becomes the vessel for Cat's unwelcome truth. Bianca, a young woman with her own troubles haunted by the aftershocks of an innocent workplace flirtation turned sinister.

This is a deep and complex novel, exploring family and relationships but, primarily, is about a woman who is diagnosed with a deadly disease and decides for the first time, to look after herself and her own needs, and the consequences of that for those depending on her. Highly recommend 👌

Thank you to NetGalley and Dundum Press for the eARC.

This was a dark take on marriage/cancer and the innerworkings of relationships during difficult times. I found the characters to be hard to like and this book felt overwhelming at times. Unfortunately I do not think this one was for me.

Loved this book… Cat is a woman challenged by her deadbeat husband, health crisis, and so much stress. I liked how the book moved, not having to tell every single detail of what has happened. A good read.

I liked the sound of this one but I really didn’t live up to the blurb.

I found it quite chaotic and confusing in places. A lot of characters (some seemingly pointless) and their POV’s seemed to make the plot get lost. And some of the harder hitting & important topics seemed to be fluffed over.

In the beginning I was really drawn into the MC, I felt like I knew a lot about her and was able to really empathise with her. Cat was well rounded and it was easy to get into her psyche and understand her. But that got lost along the way.

I loved the sections that came from Cat’s daughter too. They added an extra depth and emotional layer to the plot.

I didn’t like the fact the story ended up being more about Donovan. Donovan is a d*ck! And the random narration from the dog? I don’t know. I like quirky but this was not it.

I think for me, it was a case of great premise but poorly executed. Sorry.

Really did not enjoy this, the characters felt unbelievable and unrealistic and reading a book about a married couple without the slightest idea of how to communicate is infuriating.

Dark satire focusing on marriage, family, and cancer. Cat is a stay at home mom with two young children and a fairly useless husband, Donovan, who is also keeping some disturbing secrets from his wife. After weeks of discomfort, she discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant... and much worse, she has breast cancer. Unable to cope, she drops everything and runs away. Thus begins Lump.

This novel just wasn't for me. I honestly didn't like any of the characters on this novel, excepting the children and Louis the elderly dog, whose perspectives we get a tiny glimpse of. I feel empathy for Cat to a certain extent, but just can't imagine abandoning my young children for any reason. Donovan is disgusting, no redeeming qualities there. I do have to say that this is very well written, and I do enjoy novels that are told from varying perspectives like this. The writing was visceral, I found myself feeling nauseous while reading certain sections, though it's hard to put into words exactly why it caused that reaction in me. The ending didn't give me the satisfaction I was hoping for either, so I can't say I enjoyed this one.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This was an enjoyable read. Well written and engrossing. A complex slice of life in the form of a book. The chapter with Louis may have broken me.

In a Nutshell: Could have been outstanding, but messed up big-time in its execution. Such a wasted opportunity! Don’t pick this up if you were expecting a story about a woman battling an emotional breakdown as the blurb promises; the focus is more on the man in her life.

Story Synopsis:
Thirty-eight-year-old Cat is having a heck of a day, and not in a good way. Within a few hours' span, she discovers that she is pregnant, she has cancer, and her husband has done something idiotic. Cat falls apart emotionally and runs away from her home, without telling her husband Donovan or her two young kids or anyone else.
What led to Cat's taking such a drastic decision? How do the people in her life respond?
We learn the above through various third-person perspectives, including that of Cat.


As the blurb focusses on Cat's snapping point after the traumatic events, I expected a strong woman-oriented story about a lady who either fights back against the issues confronting her, or ventures into an introspective reflection of what went wrong. This approach would have made the story brilliant, maybe even making it cross the 4-star mark for me. The initial few pages of the book are a testimony to how amazingly the book could have delivered had it kept the focus on Cat.
Sadly, this didn't happen. What I found instead was a hot mess.

Bookish Yays:
🌹 The book started off very well. The initial few chapters build up the perfect background for Cat and her emotional state.
🌹 Cat’s housemaid Lena is an immigrant, so from her perspective, we get to see a little about immigrant experience in Toronto, where the story is based.
🌹 A few of the sections come from the perspective of Cat’s daughter Isabelle. These were the best in terms of depth and emotions.

Bookish Nays:
🌵 The story begins a few days before the revelations come Cat's way, and ends a few months later. During the interim, we get to hear from Cat, her husband Donovan, her daughter Isabelle, her maid Lena, and one segment from a pet dog's perspective. The shifting points of view mean that we get to see Cat’s emotional conflict only in bits and pieces. When the other characters pick up the narrative baton, their perspective is about the problems *they* are facing than on what’s happening with Cat.
🌵 As mentioned in the blurb and above, one of the character’s we hear from is a dog. This had made me very curious. However, the dog handled the narration for just one chapter, and that was also just about average in execution. What I couldn’t understand was why the dog was given a voice while his owner Meredith, who has a much bigger role to play in the story, never gets a chance to show us her point of view.
🌵 I had expected the major focus to be on Cat. However, to my surprise and utter disappointment, Donovan is the character who is most often on page and who gets the maximum attention, and that too for things absolutely unrelated to Cat’s trauma. This would have been okay if Donovan had any redeeming qualities. Sadly, he is among the most perverted creeps I've read in fiction. His whole perspective, especially his attitude towards women, was infuriating. I would have still enjoyed the book if he had received at least some kind of comeuppance for his behaviour, but that angle is left dangling.
🌵 Because of the writing choice, the only character we truly get to know well is Donovan. The rest of the characters are fit into the book only as per convenience of the storyline. Even for major characters such as Cat, Meredith (the woman who takes Cat in) and Claudia (Cat’s sister), the motivation behind their behaviour is never clarified.
🌵 While the first half was still tolerable, the second half goes downhill. The ending is the worst part of the book. After all that build-up and the various subplots, we don't even get any closure. There are also many loopholes and unexplained plot points. My biggest doubt was how Claudia, who is always super busy and a hyper-involved mom, suddenly finds ample free time to spend at Donovan’s house after Cat leaves, without even bothering about her own husband and baby daughter.
🌵 How can a book use cancer in the blurb and then have it just in passing during the story? We get to see Cat’s first-hand experience only when she hears from her doctor about the diagnosis. After that, nothing. No pondering over treatment options, no worry of death, no chemotherapy, no insecurity over what would happen to her kids, nothing!
🌵 Cat’s track should have generated much sympathy and emotional upheaval in me, but I ended up feeling nothing because of how distanced she was kept. And this is truly a missed chance because the author showed me in the initial chapters that he *can* write women characters well. But Donovan the jerk spoiled the whole show by hogging the attention.
🌵 There are some embarrassingly outdated and insensitive remarks about issues like race, gender, weight, sexual orientation and so on. I know that it's not the author but the character spouting/thinking those ideas, and I also remember that this is supposedly a satirical novel, but it's still cringe-worthy to read. Most of the adult main characters also seem not to know how to talk in front of kids.


All in all, this would have been my kind of book had it actually been a dark satire as promised in the blurb. But because it forgot the cancer sufferer and chose to focus more on her annoying husband, I didn't enjoy the reading experience. I still believe that the premise had potential, but something went wrong in the execution.

Can't recommend this one as a cancer story or as a satire. Might be read as a character-oriented literary fiction; it works somewhat better that way.

2 stars. (3 stars if read without the blurb/genre in mind. 1 star if read keeping an eye on the blurb. Averaging the two.)

My thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for the DRC of “Lump”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn't work out better.