This one just wasn’t for me unfortunately! I really liked the sound of Mudflowers and although I hadn’t expected it to be plot driven, I ended up struggling with the narration as it felt like very little was happening to keep my focus. I was interested in the relationship between Sophie, Alex and Maggie but it just wasn’t the gripping “complicated love triangle” that I had anticipated and it didn’t feel as though there was any real growth or development for the characters by the end.

This book wasn’t really for me. It is written in stream of consciousness which makes it feel like it jumps around with no plot. I really wanted to like this and it was enjoyable at times but overall was kind of a miss.
Thank you NetGalley for this advance review copy in return for an honest review.

Noo! I really wanted to like this. Even though I found it quite enjoyable at times, I do believe the novel simply just wasn't for me. Overall, It was simply lacking and had a lot of potential. The plot was nonexistent and I really struggled with the writing. Nevertheless, while this novel wasn’t my cup of tea, I have no doubts that it’ll capture the attention of many other readers.

Thank you to the author and the publisher for this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book wasn’t for me, unfortunately. I struggled to get into the narration style, there’s not much plot, and it jumps in time in a way that made it hard to follow. There also aren’t any chapters, just line breaks, and part one is 90-some pages long, which I personally struggle with, as someone who prefers books with clear, short-ish chapters. The way the narrator tells the story, there’s a lot of description and not a lot of dialogue, which is great if you like those kinds of books, but personally I prefer more plot and dialogue than this book offered.

Mudflowers felt like a story with potential but it didn't quite nail the execution. I wanted to like it more than I did. I didn't mind Sophie as a main character, but I felt the contrast between Maggie and Alex was exhausting. The characters are well-developed but I found it hard to connect with any of them. The writing did seem inspired by a Sally Rooney type but the broodiness felt weighted down and confusing. It was hard to focus on following the plot because I felt like I had to keep double checking what I just read. There was a kind of shock to the point of view which I alternated enjoying and finding annoying. It's the weird middle ground of I was intrigued enough to keep reading, but I wasn't excited to read more.

3.75 stars
This book doesn’t follow a direction. It leans a little toward stream of consciousness with the details we receive about Sophie’s relationship history with exes, Alex, her mom, and childhood overall. I got pretty into it mid way but started to lose that drive about 80%.
I appreciate the complex relationship Sophie has with Alex and Maggie. It is always bordering between romantic and platonic. Even when it crosses more into sexual/romantic they are all still able to attain their bond with one another once that aspect fades out. Relationships where people are so close and bonded that it dips into or borders romance is my favorite. It shows that relationships aren’t so black and white. I’m not fond of people having to have things completely platonic or in a committed relationship. Their relationship feels natural and is an essential part of how she changes and reacts.
I found Alex and Maggie’s relationship with her family very interesting. I wish we got more details about all that Maggie’s gone through and Alex’s feelings toward Maggie and Sophie. I feel that Alex has the most interesting mind so I would’ve liked sections of his stream of consciousness.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to an ARC, in exchange for an honest review.
2.5 stars

With all honesty, I don't think this book was for me. It might be for other people but I found that the layout of this book was just all over the place. I honestly thank the author for trying to make a representation of the LGBTQA+ community, and I chose to request this book precisely because of the representation.
I, however, did not feel any attachment to any of the other characters other than Sophie, and it's only because she's bisexual and I have this sense of kinship with her character.
The storytelling/writing style, however, was all over the place for my taste.
It may not be a hit read for me, but it could be for someone else.

I can see what this book was trying to do, much like Sally Rooney's writing, but it didn't work for me. The actual premise, writing and characters aren't bad but it felt like an outpour of words and just this constant stream without any breaks and it took a way from the good aspects of this book. I think this needs a bit more editing and to make the characters more likeable and relatable.

When I read the blurb for this book but sadly I found it really hard to get through it despite it being a short read. I think the opening of the book was a bit dense.

Sophie's need to find closure was relatable in parts.

I'm not sure if I would recommend it to a friend. I think maybe I might read this book again at some stage and perhaps my opinion will change.

3.5 rounded up!

This is a story about love and grief and how our relationships affect these feelings. Appreciated the bi rep, though regardless of queerness, I did feel Sophie was unrelatable to me. Mostly because I felt she was too erratic in her decision making and her relationship with Maggie seemed rushed and under developed even for WLW uhauling standards. All in all it was an enjoyable read, neither life changing nor time wasting, for a debut novel for sure though.

Tysm netgalley & Dundurn press for the ARC

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC. I really tried with this book and I got through 20% but I just could not keep on reading it. I've read some of the other reviews on Goodreads and I echo the sentiments of my fellow reviewers. The lack of structure (e.g., no quotations marks, no chapters -at least from what I read) took away from the book. It read like one very long run-on sentence. I think I could have gotten beyond the structure, though, if I was more invested in the characters. I just could not connect to the main character or the side characters. A part of me thinks that I may have liked or related to this book 15 years ago when I was in my early 20s. The content seemed reminiscent of what twenty-something idealistic people struggle with. For someone out of that stage of life, though, I found it hard to be engaged.

Mudflowers tells the story of Sophie, a woman from Newfoundland in her mid-twenties living in Toronto. The story centres on Sophie’s grief over her mother’s death and on her relationships with her childhood friend, Alex, and a woman she is friends with and romantically interested in, Maggie. My interest in the story grew stronger about a third of the way into it once I got used to Sophie’s voice and personality, and then I couldn’t stop reading until I’d finished the story.

There was enough plot to keep my interest, but it was the deep and complex relationships I enjoyed reading about most. I love books all about relationships, so I enjoyed reading about Sophie’s relationship with Alex and Alex’s father. I would have liked the book to be longer and delve more into these relationships and the characters, too, and would have read about them for much longer than the book lasted. Maggie remained a puzzle to me throughout, and I would have liked to understand her better, though she wasn’t as compelling. I would say the same about Sophie’s mother. Sophie’s relationship with her felt so significant and yet I didn’t have a sense as to why.

I enjoyed the book, especially for exploring ideas and themes that aren’t often written about and would definitely read more by the author. The ending was fitting, but I found it introduced a whole new question about the characters’ lives that wouldn’t be resolved and I continue to think about the characters’ futures.

sigh. this story wanted to be a sally rooney novel so bad, and yet it was nowhere near normal people or conversations with friends. and i don’t even like rooney’s stories, so that’s definitely saying something.

'maybe we all need more mothers than we have. maybe we all need as many mothers as we can get.'

3.5 rounded up~

honestly i liked this one more than i thought i would. sort of reminded me of a few diff favs - 'all this could be different', 'new animal' & 'acts of service' come to mind, though it's not tooooo similar to any one of them, just had the same vibe at times.

loved the exploration of different types of intimacy, grief & loneliness. loved the voice a lot - several brilliant gut-punch lines. loved the bi representation (tho i see a lot of people criticizing this which i find interesting ... to suggest it's not 'LGBT enough' feels weird and even slightly biphobic lol).

which i guess brings me to what *i* didn't love as much:
it was hard to connect with sophie (protagonist) and the decisions she made. it felt kind of hard to understand her at times. it also felt like her relationship w/ maggie should've been more... fleshed out??? it felt like things moved quickly in a half-baked manner, diving deep into certain things and skimming others with no real obvious reason for it.

either way, i thought it was an enjoyable read and i'd def recommend it if any of those 3 books mentioned above is your jam.

thanks netgalley & dundurn press for the ARC !!

Brilliant exploration of grief and art and relationships. Especially loved the families that weren't biological but made. Sophie is a character that climbed inside my heart. The backdrop of Toronto was atmospheric, sometimes gritty. All things I enjoy in books. Solid and quick read. Thank you Dundurn Press and NetGalley for an Arc of this.

Aley Waterman's book details what happens to its protagonist when she tries to deal with her grief over her mother's death. The protagonist seeks comfort in art, romance and sex. I was interested in how Waterman dealt with Sophie's emotional pain, and how she often tried to escape the pain in various ways. As someone who has lost several family members in the past few years, I could see myself in the character of Sophie as she tried to create a life for herself beyond the grief of the past.

I was moved by a lot of the book because when we grieve we don't do it in predictable ways. We find cooping mechanisms that get us through the day, and Waterman delineates those perfectly. Our lives can become aimless as we rebuild our lives. I also appreciated learning more about the Toronto art/writing scene as it's something I'm not familiar with.

There are aspects of the book that hampered my enjoyment of the book. The lack of quotation marks made it difficult at times to determine who was talking/responding. It's a stylistic decision to do this, but it makes the novel harder to get into and read. I also felt that the beginning of the book was a bit unwieldy and it took several attempts to get through it. Once I got past the first twenty pages, I was able to appreciate Sophie's experiences and the book worked much better for me.

This was a netgalley ARC that Dundurn Press provided me.

I received an Advanced Reader Copy through NetGalley and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

This is a story of a 27-year-old woman living in Toronto with a bunch of artists. She has a friend who she regularly has sex with, and eventually meets a woman who she is also intrigued by and forms a relationship with.

I can appreciate the complexities of relationships that is addressed here, and how feelings become muddy (haha lol pun) when you have complex feelings for multiple people at the same time, especially when these feelings are mutual between people.

The characters are sort of just pretentious hipster artists in Toronto, if I'm being honest. There's not really much depth to them, besides their parents' broken relationships.

The writing style in this book is rather strange. I enjoyed it in some aspects, but there are other points where it got rather difficult to read and keep up with. There are no quotation marks, which is a writing style, but it can be difficult to read from time to time.

I don't think that this should be advertised as an LGBTQ+ read, as it seems that the only aspect of "queerness" is the fact that the main character sleeps with people, no matter the gender.

I also do not think that polyamoury deserves a worse rep than it already has, and this book made poly relationships seem like it's people going behind each other's backs and making them unhappy.

A first person story told by the main character Sophie as she struggles to find herself after her mothers death. This is a scattered, sad story of loss and search for self via drugs and the arts of Toronto. The story, like the main character, never focused long enough for me to fall in love with the story.

2.5 rounded up I guess. This book blurb is everything I usually love in a book but this was just not it. I was so excited when I got an arc of this book (thanks NetGalley) but holy wow it is so hard to get through. I love lit fic, but even other lit fic I have read there is the smallest shred of plot to hang onto. For only being 230 pages there is absolutely nothing here. I do not recommend this book and can't believe I wasted two hours reading this book.

Also, idk but Maggie doesn't feel glamorous to me and the France scene either needed more or needed to be cut entirely.

Thank you netgalley for this advanced readers copy!

Mudflowers was an exploration of character and the messiness of life. It shows the complexities that can often accompany love and how hollow being human can feel. I have never read a sally rooney book but this book gives those vibes. This was the book I needed in my 20’s. When Melissa was afraid and scared and navigating through bristling traumas.