Unfortunately I did not enjoy this book. It was very difficult to read as it was boring and has no plot. However if you like the whole “no plot, just vibes” thing, this book may be for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and Zando for this advance reader copy, in exchange for an honest review. Women and Children First is a literary fiction story with an element of mystery to it; it tells the story of one teenage girl’s tragic untimely death at a house party through the perspective of 10 different women. We see some of the events leading up to this party, the party itself, and how life carries on for these individuals afterward.

There were some elements of this book that I absolutely loved! I thoroughly enjoyed the switch between different perspectives throughout the story and I really enjoyed seeing how different threads of these stories/perspectives would weave themselves together to support the larger narrative. At the same time, we truly are immersed in each individual perspective in this story, which means we dive deep into the character’s insecurities, inner battles, challenges, etc. I think this structure was so successful in giving us the literary fiction flavor, with character centric chapters, but also still contributing to the larger mystery/story at hand.

With all that being said, there were a few times throughout the book where I felt like the chapters/perspectives themselves were a bit disjointed. It took me a little while into the book to orient myself to the events of the story and what was going on. Overall, the shift between perspectives was not too jarring but, there were a few times where I needed to reread the last few pages to figure out where I was in the story and what was happening. However, this did not detract significantly from my reading of the story. I do wish the ending had a bit more of a finality to it, it seemed like the whole book was leading up to something and the ending just fell a bit flat.

But, I still really enjoyed this book!! I know I would get a lot out of it from a reread and I could definitely see myself picking this up again. Looking forward to seeing what others think when this comes out! Would definitely recommend!!

Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

In the quiet coastal enclave of Nashquitten, Massachusetts, tragedy strikes. A young woman's life is cut short at a house party, leaving behind a web of unanswered questions and fractured lives.

Women and Children First weaves an intricate tapestry of grief, love, and interconnectedness.

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of ten local women, each grappling with their own demons, desires, and regrets. As they confront the loss of the young woman, their lives intersect in unexpected ways. The town's industries, once the heartbeat of Nashquitten, now echo with sorrow and suspicion. Grabowski masterfully captures the essence of a community bound by history, secrets, and shared pain.

The prose is both lyrical and raw, painting vivid portraits of these women as they navigate grief's treacherous waters. From the grieving mother to the stoic teacher, from the betrayed best friend to the enigmatic confidante, each character reveals layers of vulnerability and resilience. Their stories intertwine, revealing the delicate threads that connect them all.

This novel explores the fragility of life, the weight of loss, and the power of human connection.

Grabowski's writing is a symphony of emotions, evoking both tears and introspection. Her portrayal of Nashquitten feels authentic, its faded glory and hidden corners echoing the ache of its inhabitants.

The novel's title, borrowed from the maritime tradition of prioritizing women and children during emergencies, serves as a poignant metaphor. In Nashquitten, everyone grapples with their own emergencies—internal storms, fractured relationships, and unspoken truths. The tragedy becomes a catalyst for self-reflection, forgiveness, and redemption.

This wonderful book and chronicle of loss will leave an indelible mark on your soul.

Writing is captivating, and each narrator's individual stories add substance to this novel and I enjoyed one story told from numerous points of view.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

A rather sad, slow read which didn't fully grab my attention. It seemed disjointed as the story swept from viewpoint to viewpoint.

2☆

Grabowski's novel delves into the aftermath of a teenage girl's sudden death in a small, struggling town in Massachusetts. The narrative unfolds through the perspectives of ten women, spanning different ages, relationships, and degrees of connection to the young girl's life. These voices, whether closely entwined, on the fringes, or profoundly affected, collectively shape the poignant tapestry of the story.

The storytelling adopts a circular structure, with individual narratives navigating through time, oscillating between past and present. This dynamic approach propels the plot forward while offering fresh insights by revisiting events from varied perspectives. Despite the contemporary and complex nature of Grabowski's narrative, it resonates with timeless themes — the challenges faced by young girls transitioning into womanhood and the reflections of older women on their own youth.

Throughout the tale, there is a yearning for better communication between generations, with a desire for young girls to heed the wisdom of their mothers, and for mothers to better understand their daughters. This modern yet ageless tragedy is recommended for enthusiasts of women-centric literary fiction. Gratitude to NetGalley, Zando Projects, and SJP Lit for providing the e-ARC.

SJP has impeccable taste, this was such a visceral experience and the style and tone felt really fresh and relevant.

I will update this review once I post to socials and formulate some thoughts.

I think this book will make a big splash in literary fiction.

There was so much to like and admire about this book. It has a fantastic sense of place and rich characters. Some of the individual scenes and interactions between characters were some of the best I can ever remember reading. Personally I wished for more time with most of them, and found it difficult in some cases to continually move onto a new character. I think this structure might be challenging for some readers, but I think overall it was effective.

Well let’s start with this it was 10 women’s perspective 5 at one time and the other 5 at another time and my lord I got confused a lot during this book tbh. I loved the concept because each person had a bit of the girls story but it just came off as a lot to me idk but it was a beautiful story and written well just a tad too many characters for me personally

A story set off by the death of a young girl. With a wide cast of characters and abrupt shifts, I did not finish this one.

I genuinely wish that I had enjoyed this book the way that I thought | would. It had so much potential, but the rotating door of introducing new characters with no time to truly connect with them fell flat. It became incredibly confusing after a while and I began to forget characters that were introduced early on and the impact/connection they had to the story. I anticipated there to be an "aha" moment where everything came together, but it never really happened. This book was sad and showcased real life, but was too disjointed for me and I felt more confused at the end than I did the beginning, which did not seem intentional at all with the style of writing in the book.
Alina Grabowski is a beautiful writer, I would certainly try reading another story, this one just didn't have the connection a story of this magnitude should have.

Some gorgeous, raw writing. The structure of this book was so unique -- I wasn't sure I would love the narrative being separated into so many viewpoints but the author did a beautiful job carrying so many threads together. Each chapter was like a short story & each character so well developed with a distinct voice. Some funny, some emotional & deep.
I would love to reread this book especially once out for publication and see whether anything is changed about the ending.
Beautiful.

This is what a coming of age story should be. WACF is a trippy narrative woven around grief and tragedy, and it does so respectfully. Despite the switches of timelines and other back and forth, it deals with its subject matter with great care. I will be returning to this book again.

Women and Children First is a beautifully written novel surrounding the tragedy of a young girl in a small coastal town in Massachusetts. It's written in multiple different perspectives, leaving it to feel somewhat like connected short stories. Each perspective is written wonderfully, though I found the tonal shifts a little hard to get into at first. This is definitely a character driven novel. I recommend this to people who enjoy literary fiction.

Thank you, Netgalley, and the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to review.
2.5 stars, rounded down - however I believe my rating has to do with my personal expectations, and thus may be a tad too subjective.

I was incredibly drawn to Women and Children First from the get-go. From the blurb, the book promises to be an 'exquisite portrait of grief and interconnectedness', and as someone who worships books on the aforementioned, needless to say I couldn't wait to start reading this. However I quickly came to realize that perhaps this book would not be what I expected it to be.

The writing was fast-paced and yet nothing of substance was really being said, it felt as though I was in a perpetual state of 'Okay, and?' The novel felt as though it sought to cover so much in such a short period, and so the end result was an unfortunately disjointed experience that I could not connect to. I did not really - feel - any grief, I was rather just told of it.

Also, quite frankly, too much dialogue. But then again, that might be a personal preference issue.

Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski Is a book different from any other book I have read. It tells the stories of 10 women who had a relationship with one of the characters, Lucy, who died at a teenage drinking party. We see the death from the perspective of several of the women, but the reason for the death is unknown. The stories require the reader to pay attention. A person in one story who is unnamed may come back in another story as a main character. A memory by one character may be proven wrong by a character in another story. This book reflects real life where we don’t always see clearly what is really happening and we jump to conclusions and get it wrong.
I loved the writing in this book and loved each and every character. It was a bit hard to follow and required my full attention- a chart at the front of the book with a quick summary of each character would have appeased my lazy mind as I found myself going back to earlier chapters often (read this is book format rather than electronic!!). Looking forward to more from this author.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.

The prose was difficult for me to stick with--there was a lot of detail I didn't think was necessary, told in a present-tense vernacular voice that didn't grab me.

I’m finding a lot of ARCs aren’t formatted properly for Kindle. So it becomes an exercise in tedium to read them, making my enjoyment lessen. I’m not going to fight with an ARC.

I have been trying to come up with a way to describe this novel which is comprised of multiple first person point of view characters - both girls and women - each narrative centering around the death of a local teenaged girl. It wasn't until the final sentence of the novel - which I won't spoil here - that it came to me via the author's own words. The story feels like a kaleidoscope - confettied, fractured, yet also circling in surprising patterns, at the center of which is Lucy (the girl who died).

I always caution my writing students when they consider alternating first person perspectives: it's tricky to pull off. But Grabowski skillfully and clearly delineates each of these characters. And from those at the periphery of Lucy's story to her own grieving mother, we circle closer and closer to Lucy and to understanding what happened to her.

The one byproduct of so many points of view (and none of them repeated or returned to) is that the reader's time with each character was limited to a single chapter, making it difficult to invest in any of them. But ultimately, the cumulative effect is the vivid portrait of a town, of a community, and of a single lost girl.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to take an early peek at WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST.

3.5 Stars

I found it difficult to engage with this book; parts captivated me but others left me bored.

In Nashquitten, Massachusetts, a fictional coastal community, teenaged Lucy Anderson dies at a house party after a fall. The circumstances around her death are not clear: Was it an accident? Was it caused by a medical emergency? Was it suicide? Was she deliberately pushed?

The novel is divided into two sections: Pre and Post. Various women and teenaged girls, five in each section, speak about their lives before and after Lucy’s death. All ten are connected to Lucy, some very closely and some more peripherally. For instance, we hear from the president of the PTA at Lucy’s school, Lucy’s best friend, and Lucy’s mother. Sometimes characters will reappear. Jane is the first narrator in the Pre section, but she makes a cameo in the third chapter and is a character in the fourth Post story. The principal of Lucy’s school is not one of the ten narrators but drifts in and out of several chapters. Sometimes a character appears but is not clearly identified until later; this is the case with Maureen who actually talks to Jane in the first chapter though she is unnamed until she narrates the eighth chapter.

There is the mystery of how Lucy fell to her death, and people do speculate about assigning blame. Though there is no definite conclusion, the addition of perspectives negates some theories. But there are other mysteries: Why does Layla advise Sophia to write about her mother in her university application essay? What is in the video posted about Lucy and who is responsible for it? What will happen to Robert Taylor? Why is Eric sent home from his part-time job? Finding the answers for these questions does provide motivation to continue reading.

As the title implies, the focus is on women and girls. The book does touch on some of the difficulties of being female in a small community where everyone knows everyone or thinks they know everything about everyone. Virtually all the females are aware of societal expectations and judgments. Anonymity and privacy are virtually impossible and reputations quickly ruined. Two observations made by the PTA CEO really caught my attention; looking at a mural of the Virgin Mary, she muses “You know a man conceived her because she has this empty, faux-serene expression on her face that conveys absolutely nothing besides: I am here to sacrifice. A miserable image.” And she also thinks that “a girl and a child are not the same. A child is a pet. A girl is prey.”

Men remain secondary characters and often are not portrayed positively. There are two male teachers who have inappropriate relationships with students. Natalie works for “the founder” who is psychologically abusive. Rae’s poet is manipulative. Jane is being raised by a single mother. Maureen is a single mother. But the female characters are also not always likeable. Mothers (Jane’s and Olivia’s and Sophia’s and Emma’s) often behave in ways that negatively impact their children. All this is to say that the author has excelled at characterization; everyone is complex and flawed.

The theme that is strongest for me is the interconnectedness amongst people. Donne’s “No Man is an Island” even came to mind. What one person does can impact many. Certainly, Lucy’s death affects many people, even some who barely knew her. All of the characters are connected in some way. I wish I had kept a chart of the connections among the various characters because one character often has connections with several others: Rae is Mona’s friend; Rae’s landlady is Maureen; and Rae serves Brynn at the bar. And Rae’s nephew works with Jane! The theory of six degrees of separation also came to mind: Natalie’s best friend is Mona; Mona knows Rae and works with Marina; Marina is at the party with Lucy, Brynn’s daughter, and Olivia; Olivia is the daughter of the principal who fires Layla, Mona’s roommate; Layla counsels Sophia, Lucy’s best friend; Sophia becomes friends with Jane; Jane has an encounter with Maureen, Rae’s landlady.

This book probably deserves a re-read because I’m certain I’ve missed important ideas and connections. Some of my questions are unanswered: Why does Rae hate trains? This book is not an escapist read; its disjointed structure requires the reader to concentrate in order to see links. Unfortunately, I found some of the chapters tedious and the subject matter rather dark so I have no desire to do a second reading at this time.

There are dozens of small towns in America encircling large cities where industry has departed for greener pastures. Their declining economies now service commuters and, in a few instances, tourists. Many of the long-term inhabitants of those communities are poorer than the newcomers and have interconnected, frequently dark, histories. Grabowski splendidly captures the insular nature of these psychosocial dynamics in her novel. The adults are flawed and challenged by their own problems while the kids seem to be left to their own devices. Nashquitten, MA is just such a place.

In her novel (really a collection of interconnected short stories), Grabowski explores multiple themes engendered by a small-town setting. These include age, gender, class, ambition, education, isolation, and responsibility. These swirl around the tragic death of Lucy Anderson at a high school party. Each chapter is narrated by a different female character with some set before Lucy’s death and others after. The varied perspectives suggest that Lucy may have been truly an enigma, or this may just reflect who’s talking. In any event, this structure provides some mystery to a plot that is essentially character-driven.

Although the novels structure admirably captures the mood of townies in a small bedroom community, it presents with some problems that Grabowski fails to fully overcome. The novel is quite disjointed and her choice of immersing the reader into each chapter with little to signal context can be jarring. Moreover, the shear number of voices and the brevity of their time on stage make it difficult to fully engage with any of them.

Whether Grabowski meant to make Lucy into a cipher is not entirely clear. However, her failure to resolve the question of cause in Lucy’s accident is not very satisfying. Did she slip? Was she pushed? Did she have a seizure before the fall? Was it suicide? Grabowski makes a plausible case of each of these but leaves the resolution to the imagination.