IF WE'RE BEING HONEST is the debut by Cat Shook and the audio is narrated by Kathleen McInerney.

This is an extended family drama that kicks off at the funeral of the Patriarch, Gerry. The three kids of Gerry and Ellen Williams and the four adult grandkids are all there when the eulogy goes off the rails and rattles the entire family. With a wedding of close friends in a week, the family are all together processing the revelations which spur on deeper conversations within this clan. Finding a way to move forward is the challenge that they all must meet.

Coming from a large and close extended family, this was a story that had some familiar idiosyncrasies. I loved the cousin connections as they felt authentic. It was a lot of drama to keep track of, but that also felt real.

This story definitely had its moments of crazy. I did enjoy each of the character's wrestling with what to do with the information they received and whether it mattered going forward. They each had personal growth challenges that had to come up against grief and reframing what they though they knew. I appreciated the bittersweet moments that closed out this story as well.

I listened to this audio as well as followed the digital ARC and that may be an additional reason why it was not hard for me to follow. McInerney did a great job differentiating between characters. I do believe that in the final printed version, it would benefit more readers to have a family tree, however.

I think there were a lot of really great moments in this story. After reading several powerful family dramas lately, this one did not have the deeper powerful emotions that I expected. This would be a perfect choice for readers looking for a lighter family drama with a bit of sass!

⭐⭐⭐💫

Thank you to @celadonbooks for the @netgalley digital ARC and audio ALC! I truly love having both and this was a delight. This title will be available on April 18th!

I love this southern family drama that starts with a funeral and a secret and ends with a wedding and new beginnings. The soap opera of this entire family was just the right amount of drama. I loved the ending and the secret of the magnolia trees that were planted around the neighborhood was such a sweet touch.

In this charming, heartwarming, and witty southern debut, Cat Shook's IF WE'RE BEING HONEST tells the story of the Williams family— following them through an eventful week that begins with a funeral and ends with a wedding... and everything in between.

82-year-old Gerry has suddenly passed away from a heart attack. He is the grandfather and patriarch of the Williams family. He was well respected and loved by many. When he dies suddenly, all the grandchildren and family return to the small rural town of Eulalia, Georgia, for the funeral.

However, they all get a SHOCKER when Gerry's best friend delivers some surprising news at the eulogy.

The funeral turns into a circus. Everyone is shocked while dealing with their respective grief in different ways.

Cousins Delia, Alice, Grant, Red, and the other members of this large family reflect on their lives, their family, and their grandfather, Gerry, and grandmother, Ellen.

Gossip is flying and tongues wagging, but Ellen tries to hold it together. Everyone has secrets in this small southern town.

Smart, funny, and honest, you will laugh out loud! Hilarious.

I listened to the audiobook, in which the fabulous narrator Kathleen McInerney was superb—representing a wide array of voices for a highly entertaining listen.

A smashing debut family drama! For those who enjoy delightful, messy, dysfunctional, complex, and multi-generational family sagas. I loved the satisfying conclusion!

Looking forward to reading more from this new talent.

Thanks for #MacmillanAudio for a gifted ALC via #NetGalley for review purposes.

Blog Review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
Put Date: April 18, 2023
My Rating: 4 Stars
April 2023 Must-Read Books

Let’s start with the positives. The writing itself is quite good, and Kathleen McInerney, the audiobook narrator, is talented.

I have a print ARC and the audiobook, and I’d planned to alternate. But plans go awry...

My audiobook started with a LARGE family tree. This is almost always a warning sign. My ARC print copy doesn’t have the family tree, but I don’t think it mattered because I’m not one to consult a relationship map every time another character steps onto the page.

And there are so many characters! The story opens with an info dump of ALL the characters, their relationships, backstories, etc. I needed a spreadsheet to keep it all straight.

The book is written in omniscient POV, so we’re in everybody’s head all the time. The switches are jarring and unnecessary. I desperately needed a narrower focus and less POV characters.

The audiobook kept me engaged for a time because the narrator is fun to listen to. Reading the print copy didn’t work for me at all.

Ultimately, the story was an odd combination of too much and not enough. I wanted this story to belong to someone, anyone, but not everybody. Consequently, I didn’t feel any connection with these people, whose tangential drama and all around grating immaturity wasn’t enough to keep me interested.

I gave up.
DNF at around 30%.

*Thanks to BookishFirst for the ARC and Celadon for the audiobook download.*

I’ve seen mixed reviews on this one, and I think I can agree with both sides. While this book does a good job narrating the banal events of every day life, it doesn’t really have much of a point. It has a lot of characters with a lot of things happening but none of the events are fully fleshed out. I think the author chose quantity over quality with this one. It reads like a Modern Family-esque sitcom, but less hilarious.


Thank you to the publisher for advanced audio copy. All thoughts are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley, Celadon Books, and Macmillan Audio for the gifted copies in exchange for my honest review.

If I’m being honest, I did not love this book. It had a few shining moments, so I can totally see how some readers might enjoy it. The beginning started out with a bang, but once the family members started having their own drama, it slowed down quite a bit. There was way too much going on for me to follow and I just didn’t care about most of the storylines. I didn’t keep track of all the POVs, but there were at least five and of those main characters, I only really liked two of them. I will say that Red’s character and his story were very well done, though. Overall, this balances out to be a middle-of-the-road read for me. If you like family dramas with a lot of characters, give this one a shot. It’s definitely not bad for a debut.

This was a DNF for me. Not because I was offended or found some fatal character plot line. Rather it was just too many characters and too much plot to keep track of. I think the author tried to do what Jonathan Tropper’s This is Where I Leave You did well but unfortunately missed the mark. I should note I received the audiobook ARC.
Maybe I would have felt differently if I read the print version.

Sometimes, with families, it takes a funeral to bring everyone together. That's what happens in this story when JJ, Wilma, and CarolAnn's father dies. The three siblings are once again back in town with their mother, Ellen. After Fred's speech at the funeral, it seems like there's no getting the lid back on this pandora's box! I enjoyed the well drawn realistic characters and their stories. The story was also well narrated, I just had to write down the family tree at the beginning to keep them all straight. If you like character-driven stories, like Mary Beth Keane and Ann Napolitano, you will enjoy this book as well.

This was just ok for me. I liked the various viewpoints, but I felt each of their storylines were fairly predictable. It was definitely an easy read!

Alright, so first I want to say that this is not my normal genre, but I do like to change it up from time to time. If We’re Being Honest started out pretty good. It gave me This Is Where I Leave You vibes, which was one of my favorite books/movie so I was pretty hopeful. However, as I progressed through the first few chapters, it went down hill quick. The dialogue is excessively juvenile for adults in their late 20s to early 30s, it was just way too much for me. I felt like the 30 year old people were so immature, fumbling over their words like hormone charged preteens and it was just so cringy. Also, there’s a ton of characters and a lot of information so it takes some time to wrap your head around everything and everyone. There were also some cliche “romance” moments that also made me cringe and I felt like the ending was just so rushed after 200+ pages of filler that led up to nowhere. All in all, it was cutesy, but maybe too cutesy for me. If you like family dramas, enjoy a book without much plot and you don’t mind the dialogue (I will admit that dialogue is a huge thing for me in books) then you might enjoy this one. If We’re Being Honest will be published 4/18. Thanks to the author and Celadon books for my advanced audiobook.

These characters are whiney and insufferable with no redeeming qualities the narrator is much the same.

Unfortunately a DNF at 30 percent for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Celadon Publishing for the advanced listening copy all opinions are my own.

I just completely lost interest. Some of the family dysfunction seemed really eye roll worthy & the way it jumped around between characters, I kept getting confused with the audio

The description said “For fans of We Are the Brennans” and that could not have been more accurate. This was written very similarly, with a big family coming together over the death of their Husband, father, grandfather.

I was luckily able to listen to the audiobook (thank you NetGalley and Macmillan audio) and, as much as I enjoyed the story in the end… I had some issues throughout.

First things first, there were too many characters. Immediately I was expected to be able to track like, 9 people, and their relationship to one another. I think not having much change in the narration and not having the ability to read possible written changes in the book made it difficult to follow along and keep track of everyone. It didn’t help that the chapters were very long and each character got a little side story in each one.

While there were a few touching moments regarding religion, grief, love, family and shared secrets … I personally wasn’t very invested in anyone enough to care. I did, however, really like Red. Jennifer was quite possibly the worst.

I did appreciate the ‘realness’ of the characters though. A lot of stories make everything and everyone hunky dory for the sake of a good book, but Shook gave each character some flaws that felt true to humanity - vanity, jealousy, and the same sort of confused feelings most people would have after finding out what they did at the funeral.

I’m glad it ended the way it did, it really felt like things came a bit full circle and as a listener it was easy to feel some weight being lifted from the grandchildren and Ellen around the magnolia tree. Things are pretty much left open but not in a way that makes the story feel unfinished.

Personally, I think this one might be best to read rather than listen to, and it didn’t quite grab me as much as We Are the Brennans, but in the end I didn’t dislike it. It was pleasant and real and sometimes that’s a nice change from the sugar plums and fairies I’m always reading.

3 ⭐

This book will be available on 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟏𝟖, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑, but some lucky reader is going to find it in this LFL now!

I love messy family dramas and 𝐈𝐟 𝐖𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 fits the bill. The Williams family gathers together for Gerry Williams’ funeral. But when Gerry’s best friend delivers not just a eulogy, but a drunk confession about him and Gerry. Well now, this sets the whole family abuzz in the sweltering Georgia heat.

The confusion over Gerry’s possible hidden life seems to allow room for the rest of his family to work out secrets of their own. This includes Gerry’s wife, kids, his siblings, and their kids - so there’s a lot going on - but it's fun and entertaining.

Thank you @celadonbooks for the gifted copies.
And thank you @Macmillan.audio for the complimentary audiobook.

This book truly grew on me - I almost decided to DNF it, but I stuck with it instead and ended up becoming invested in the characters and their individual dramas.

This is a rare book that I started in audiobook format and ended up switching to (digital) print. Nothing against the audiobook narrator - I just found the large cast of characters and super long chapters with oscillating points of view really taxing to following in the audio format. It was easier to follow for me with a visual. I would have loved a visual family tree in the beginning to keep all the characters straight! Once I got to know each individual character's specific drama, it became much easier to follow and much more engaging of a story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Celadon for inviting me to read this novel.

I had such a hard time getting into this book. As others have pointed out there are just so many characters! It's not just the amount of characters but also the fact that we switch storylines quite frequently. At the start of the book all of the character are introduced all at the same time, and there are a lot of them! By the time I was starting to keep some of them straight the story would switch to a different plot line. I think this whole story would be fabulous as a movie, but as a book it was extremely confusing.
In terms of plot I ended up really enjoying a lot of the book. With multiple storylines and multiple characters I enjoyed some stories more than others. I really wanted to read more about some of the younger cousins and could have taken Carol Anne's entire storyline out of the book entirely. I wish I got to read more about fewer characters rather than skim the surface of loads of people.

Thanks to Celadon Books for an advanced copy of the book to read and review.

Not even a hundred pages in and we enter into one of the messiest funerals, and aftermath of said funeral, I have ever had the privilege of being privy to. The small-town scandal of it all was so well-written and I absolutely loved it. The story was so juicy to listen to because every single character had their own issues and nuances. Shook did an amazing job at driving the characters and keeping the flow between them!

We have about 9-10 separate POV's going on in this book so it's a lot to take on, especially with such a character-driven read. One thing that makes the audiobook easier is that the characters are referred to by their first name throughout. That was my saving grace at being able to keep track of who everyone was and how they were related! If you do not enjoy having a ton of POV's this may not be the book, or audiobook, for you.

After finishing this one, I just felt as though I was wrapped in a gigantic warm hug. Not everything was amazing or necessarily fixed, but it was raw and real. The characters could have very well been my neighbors, my friends, or even my own family members. The William's family was relatable in every way and I think so many people are going to love this one.

An entertaining and heartfelt family drama debut that sees a cast of relatives dealing with their grief over the loss of a beloved grandfather. Full of memorable characters dealing with relatable life issues. This was good on audio narrated by Kathleen McInerney and perfect for fans of authors like Emma Straub, Tracey Lange or Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early digital and audio copies in exchange for my honest review. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for what this author writes next.

A solid entry into the family drama genre, If We're Being Honest brings together three generations of the Williams family when the patriarch, Jerry, dies. A funeral confession brings about the unveiling of even more secrets among the clan. With an upcoming wedding also in the mix, we get to see which marriage is really solid and which is crumbling.
While none of the secrets are really earthshattering by today's standards, the Williams family is an affable bunch to follow. What was most fun was the discovery of the secret surrounding the Magnolia trees.
Narrated by Kathleen McInerney who brought the characters to life.

Thank you to Celadon Books for an audiobook copy. All opinions are my own.

A perfectly fine book about a seemingly fine family experiencing loss, turmoil, personal discovery, and connection. This book felt like those television shows following families as they go through fairly normal, yet life changing events - Parenthood, This Is Us, etc. Those are great, but tied into one book makes for a hard to follow plot line. I found myself crossing storylines as it bounced from one person to the next. Fortunately, the ending felt almost full circle leaving me content. As I said, a perfectly fine book.

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and author Cat Shook for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.