Sing, I is an often melancholy, well rendered character driven story by Ethel Rohan. Released 15th April 2024 by the Northwestern University Press, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

Readable and engaging, it's too well written to be strictly be classified as Chick-Lit, but it will appeal to readers who enjoy character arcs with female protagonists finding themselves and changing their own lives, as well as the way they interact with the people in their orbit. The prose is very good and the author excels at characterization. There are a fair number of unbelievable situations which pop up throughout the story, and Esther's husband is a saint, but overall it's an interesting story, well told.

Four stars. It would make a good choice for public library acquisition, home use, or a reading club/buddy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Ethel Rohan brings the crisp prose of her short stories into this novel. "Sing, I" offers a protagonist whose life changes in the aftermath of a haunting crime. A good read

There's a lot of potential, a lot of intriguing aspects in this story but I felt like it wasn't clear if it was fiction, mystery, a mix.
Esther is a well plotted characters and the setting is interesting.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Holding a handgun and wearing a giraffe mask, the man entered a convenience store. After terrorizing the two female employees, he left “cracking a jubilant laugh.” While Crystal was whisked away to the hospital, Ester was told by her misogynist boss to “B here to open tomorrow r else…No one walks out on me!” As a second robbery occurred, the robber’s “caustic smell refound her.” Likely the same guy…same MO, a handgun and an animal mask. As the robberies increased and the masked gunman got bolder and more violent, Ester, a vigilante of sorts, was determined to unmask the culprit.

Ester Prynn, traumatized by the masked robber and the attitude of her employer, quit her job at Rich Goods, located in the small coastal town of Half Moon Bay near San Francisco. The robbery drudged up her feelings of shame and if-only scenarios. Little did she know that she would embark upon a journey of self-discovery.

Ester felt diminished. She was in an unfulfilling marriage and was unable to emotionally reach her unsocial, often truant middle school son, an addicted gamer. What was me time? She didn’t have any. Free time was spent visiting her dad at the Alzheimer’s wing of a nursing home. “...she imagined packing up and starting over someplace new, where no one knew her. It would never happen.” Could she initiate change, turn things around? It started with an application for a hostess job at a “dated hotel restaurant.”. Startling, unexpected, wonderful new feelings arose.

An opportunity for female bonding occurred with the formation of a choir-no experience necessary. The choir's mission statement: “A sisterhood celebrating the joy and power of raising our voices together as one.” In Ester’s words, “...too much of my life has been about others-pleasing them, disappointing them, looking after them, recovering from them…Somewhere along the way, I lost my I…[the choir called] Sing, I is a salute, and a commitment to putting ourselves and voices front and center.”

The choir increased Ester’s confidence. Many members shared rocky life journeys as well as exchanged humorous stories. “How does anyone else ever know what we do and don’t suffer in silence?” The choir was diverse and all inclusive. Ester and friends “examine[d] deeply held prejudices and hidden desires.”

“Sing, I” by Ethel Rohan is a read focusing on the idea that if you are given lemons, make lemonade. Yes, Ester did feel empowered through the help and guidance of friends and cohorts, however, her choices left this reader disappointed with Ester’s predictability and lack of closure.

Thank you Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ester Prynn, deliberately named after the heroine of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is held up at gunpoint at the convenience store where she works. This traumatic event becomes the catalyst for reassessing her pretty unsatisfactory life, and re-examining what she truly wants and who she truly is. The connection with the original Hester Prynne will only be obvious to those readers familiar with the earlier story, so this connection felt problematic to me. Although the book is enjoyable up to a point and deals with many of the issues current in our contemporary world, my problem with the book is that the author covers just too many bases, rather like a checklist. So what we have here is an unsatisfied married woman, a frankly horrible and sullen teenage son addicted to gaming, a well-meaning but relatively clueless husband (I actually felt sorry for him, just as I do Mr Karenin and Mr Bovary, those other often maligned husbands who try their best), a bigoted friend, a trans friend, an alcoholic friend, a father in a home with dementia, estranged siblings, and to cap it all, a lesbian boss to whom Ester is attracted. Enough already! And then there’s a women only choir, which, naturally, proves redemptive for everyone. So although perfectly readable, and I certainly wanted to know if it panned out as I expected plus it was relatable up to a point, it all felt predictable and the ending frankly unconvincing.