When the world began to shut down because of Covid-19, writer Rebecca Rosenblum started posting about her days in Toronto, Canada, on Facebook. These Days Are Numbered is an edited volume of those public entries.

Rosenblum's writing is humorous and, at times, poignant. At its heart, Rosenblum's memoir is about searching for community and connection in the strange new world we all found ourselves adjusting to.

More than once I thought some variation of 'how odd that she keeps referring to her husband by his full name?!' before remembering that this is because he was tagged in the original Facebook posts! So, the transfer from social media to book isn't seamless although I understand the decision to leave things like this in place.

I know reading about the pandemic (particularly in non-fiction) isn't for everyone, but I am glad I spent time with Rosenblum's lockdown diary. If only because it reassured me that forgetting how to have 'normal' conversation with people post-lockdowns wasn't just a me problem! 😂

'These Days Are Numbered' is a humorous diary of the author's lockdown experience. I enjoyed reading it and could relate to the frustrations she felt. My only comment is that is was a little too long - although I believe the author had cut it down considerably!

A relatable moments and timed-events that happened recently that everyone had experienced. A record of things happened during the pandemic, the understanding and frustration at the same time being felt which the character trying to challenge and to overcome.

Overall the read was satisfactory.

3.4/5 stars

Thank you Netgalley for the copy.

How does a crowded, high-density urban area work when the world suddenly needs to be spaced six feet apart? What does community look like when everything it was based on is changed? And how can an extrovert fulfill their needs in the middle of all of this? These Days Are Numbered, a collection of journal-esque Facebook statuses, chart Rebecca Rosenblum's personal struggles with these questions, in the middle of the global pandemic.

Although I tend to stay far away from pandemic content (Help, with Jodie Comer? - I absolutely could not do it), there was something about the blurb of this book that grabbed me. It pretty much does what it says on the tin, being an account of Rosenblum's life during the major years of the pandemic.

It was, by turns, reflective, angry, hopeful, sad, and deeply funny: I adored the snippets of conversation between Rosenblum and her husband! Both because they were very funny, and also because I think we all had those truly bizarre interactions during the lockdowns, that only really come from living in close proximity for too long. That was really the beauty of the book, that even if the day-to-day experiences were different (I wasn't working during the bulk of the 2020 lockdowns, I was living in the suburbs of an English city) it still felt fundamentally relatable. It was reassuring, to know that someone on the other side of the world was having experiences that had some essential similarity to mine, when even the other side of the city was unreachable at that time.

I do think there is room for critique. Whilst I felt that Rosenblum was generally good at reflecting on her privilege during a time that drew such chasms, it still means that this book won't be representative for everyone. Even past the differences of class, race, and dis/ability - that all likely impacted each individual experience of the pandemic - she wasn't a front-line worker, she had her family relatively nearby, she was living with a loved one. As well, there were parts - mostly in relation to race - that felt a bit weird when considered as public Facebook posts, as opposed to a private diary. More generally, the pacing felt a little off - despite being made up of a collection of short snippets, it took me a long time to read, and it felt that the pandemic was nearing a plateau somewhat before the book itself.

What does community look like, when everything it was previously based on has to change? I think maybe it looks a bit like this.

I wanted to really love this, but the format just didn’t work for me. It read like it originally was: a Facebook diary. And while that’s fine, I don’t particularly want to read that outside of Facebook. I also think it could have benefitted from an epilogue instead of the posts just ending. That said, I still really enjoyed the writing style. I felt the weird nostalgia for that time period and identified with a lot of the stories. If you can get past the format, I’d highly recommend this one.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. This was a well-written insight into Rosenblum's experience of lockdown. She wrote well about daily life (even though in some ways there wasn't much to write about!) and her style was engaging. Also, Alice and Evan sound great!

Incredibly well written and moving. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book in exchange for a review.

I honestly don't know how to rate this, so 3/5 it is. On the one hand, I'm nosy and lonely as hell because the isolation never really ended for me after the pandemic, so reading a day to day recount from some random person's life was something I liked, to an extent. But if I thought about it too much, it ended up spiraling towards "why the fuck am I reading this? why do I care?".
And on the other hand, this book is a piece of history. 50 years from now it'll be a very interesting read. But I lived through the pandemic, am still caught in the aftermath, and none of this is news to me. She seemed to be allowed to go to more places than I was, and she spent the whole thing with someone she loves and is only mildly annoyed at sometimes, which is something I didn't get to do, so sometimes it was like I felt that my experience was more of a history document than this book. Which is really shitty to think, because I don't mean to sound like those "my three year old could've painted this!!", but it's also a result of the times I think, of having gone through the pandemic together.
Although I understand the legal hijinks it could bring, it would've been nice if some comments on the posts were kept. At the beginning we're told some of this posts were conversations with someone in the comments, or continuations of answers she gave to some previous post. And then we just don't get to see that, not one comment, and I think the traces of other posts being a follow-up of some comments were scraped in the edits. If this were blog entries I'd understand, but they were originally social media posts!!! Where's the social??
And the end felt weird. It just stopped.The author gave so many good political opinions/monologues on the rest of the book, that it's just stupid to not explain why you stopped writing in february 2022. Was it because you got bored of facebook? Because you think covid ended there? Because no one was interacting with your posts anymore? It would've been the sensible thing to do to explain why it ended where it did.

As the pandemic fades (hopefully) into history I am sure that there will be more memoirs of the time frame, as well as fiction that features it but as the first one I've come across I did enjoy These Days Are Numbered.
It was great to read about how lockdowns affected other countries and interesting to see how other huge events between 2020 and 2022 reverberated around the world.
I also really liked that while Rosenblum and her husband were financially comfortable enough to weather the crisis - including a redundancy - they were on the edge of the affluent areas of Toronto and could see how even in a global pandemic the 'have nots' were impacted far more seriously.

Being a collection of Facebook posts the book did at time feel long but it definitely brought back the claustrophobia of the time.

Nice writing here. I think a lot of readers will relate or at least empathize with the author. An accurate description of this book is provided by the publisher (which is not always done).

Thanks very much for the free book for review!!

"The diary of a woman longing for community in a crowded downtown in pandemic times, when casual intimacies are forbidden."

I loved the cover and the title of this book, both of which immediately drew me in.

Due to work I'm involved in professionally in relation to the importance of social connection to health and wellbeing, I still quite often find myself asking people "how was your pandemic?". Rebecca Rosenblum's whole book is an answer to that question, providing a great insight into her personal experience. Her pandemic was spent in a high rise apartment in Toronto's St James Town with her husband and cats, sharing her day to day observations on social media with the friends she could no longer see in person - those insightful, thoughtful and funny posts make up this book.

Rebecca is very likeable, and her reflections from her "box in the sky" are always engaging. She's both more gregarious and more anxious than me, but many of her thoughts and experiences were relatable, often amusing, occasionally sad. She's a very good writer and it's a readable and often thought provoking book, shining a powerful light on the impact of being cut off, in many of the ways that count, from one's usual connections and communities.

Many thanks for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy!

This book made light of a very dark time in the kindest and best way. While reading, I felt like I was catching up with that one friend who has the best outlook on all situations😌 it was nice to read how the pandemic was actually handled in Canada compared to the US and more specifically Oklahoma😵‍💫 Overall, this was a cozy 3.5 star read🌟

A book that does exactly what it says on the tin. It is made up of posts on FB made during the pandemic by Rebecca Rosenblum from her home in Toronto.

At first I thought oh I'm going to get bored but in fact it was very interesting, not only to read how somebody else got through the whole experience but also how Canada dealt with the lockdowns and vaccinations.

I have to confess that I know nothing about Canadian life and after a couple of aborted attempts I totally gave up with the acronyms and just read the entries.

As you'd expect there are some worrying parts, some downright weird and quite a lot if chuckles along the way. The funniest bits are definitely the interactions between Rebecca and her husband Mark. She says in the acknowledgements that he's not always that funny but I'm not sure I believe that. You can tell a couple who bounce off each other in a jokey way. Its always a treat.

So thanks to Netgalley for the ARC and to Rebecca for writing what is essentially a pandemic diary. It made me wish I'd documented more of my experiences because we forget so quickly. All in all an interesting read that you can dip in and out of or read in great lumps as I did. I'm really interested in reading her fiction now too.

This was written so beautiful and i really enjoyed it. So honest, authentic and funny. It had me hooked from page one and i had to keep reading.

Rebecca Rosenblum takes us on a rollercoaster of ride as we all endured such a difficult time when faced with the Covid pandemic, Rebecca has took us in to her personal thoughts and feelings throughout the months from her flat in St James Town Toronto, the book portrays times of compassion and times of pure joy, this is such a real account of what a lot have left during the time!