This little book wrecked me. It made my heart expand while simultaneously breaking it. This was a meditation on motherhood and what that looks like through many stages. This is a meditation on being someone’s child and how that shapes and breaks our hearts. This was a book about life, love, fear and grief. It was a book about living. This was a gut punch and it will really stick with me. These characters, this setting, these words. It all really struck a cord with me.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is a short character driven novel. The main character is Rocky, the mother of two twenty-something children, and 54 year-old wife. Every year this family visits the same vacation rental on Cape Cod for a week. This book only shows the family during this one week of vacation with the exception of a few flashbacks sprinkled in. Although this book is short, the pace moves slowly along. I didn’t feel connected to the story or characters through most of the book. Had it been a longer novel, I may have added it to the DNF stack. I have heard from several bookish friends that they did connect with this book which is why I decided to give it a try. It seems like although this book wasn’t much for me, many women did connect with it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for this review digital copy.

Thank You NetGalley for the ARC. What a great book about family and a mother's journey through it all. This is my favorite book of the year.

I had such high hopes for this book based on the description and was very disappointed. I found myself cringing at some of the dialogue and conversations. This was nothing like any family vacation I have ever been on. I also had a hard time relating to the main character (and we are in the same stages of life) and honestly just really didn’t like her.

Having spent years taking family vacations to Sandwich in Cape Cod I was immediately drawn to this book on premise alone. I was then drawn in to a beautifully written story about family, aging, loss and most importantly, love. It was a beautiful “vacation” with a very realistic family - not perfect, but endearing.

Loved this book and recommending to others!

The prose in this book was incredible and beautiful. I enjoyed the weaving story between the present day and the past. The characters had great development, and it truly did not feel like fiction. It strikes a perfect balance between the seriousness of pregnancy, miscarriages, and the humor of what women have to experience.

If there is one book I would say people should read this summer, Sandwich by Cathrine Newman would be it.

A profound study of motherhood, womanhood, relationships, family, secrets & the choices that shape our lives, all taking place during a family’s annual vacation week on the Cape.

While short (only 226 pages) it packs a lot of emotion & nostalgia within its pages, reminding you that even the most small & mundane moments matter.

Where to even begin? I devoured this treat in one sitting! Never have I had a book so accurately depict exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. I laughed and cried and laughed again. This is one book that will stick with me for quite a while. I loved it!

thank you netgalley for the e-arc. sorry for the language but i fucking LOVED this book. i loved catherine's first book, we all want impossible things, and that one wrecked me. sandwich was just as good! i love the mundane details that move the story along...how each person likes their beach sandwich, the personality quirks you only get the perspective from rocky. the in between chapters looking into rocky and her husband's past trying to concieve were really beautiful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this (almost autobiographical?) novel by Catherine Newman. The reflections on middle age, menopause, motherhood, aging parents, newly adult children, marriage, and so much more was so real it was like looking over the author's shoulder as she wrote in her journal. Or even having someone write my own, to a certain extent.

If you are going through menopause or about to - this would be an amazing book for you! I am not (yet, hopefully not for another 15 years) and it scared me shitless, but I still enjoyed it immensely.
Ann Patchett recommends this book and her readers will feel a familiar pull here. Not a lot happens. We follow a family on their annual Cape Cod vacation and get flashbacks to some of the prior events. This is a book about family, women, fertility, aging, and body autonomy. It is funny and heartbreaking at times, and really well written. If you choose the audiobook, the narrator is lovely and did a wonderful job bringing all the characters to life.
It is not really about Sandwich, MA. Not like Hilderbrand’s books are about Nantucket. This story could happen on New Jersey shore, in Florida, or even San Francisco. But that’s beside the point, really. A lovely read, through and through.

This is the perfect summer book. Reading it with your eyes squinting from the bright sun outside and from the tears pooling in your eyes. This book feels like a hug, and then prompts you to hug your mother.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman is an ode to family, marriage, parents, children, grief and love.
It's funny, witty, and sad all at the same time.
It's a quick read and as I was nearing the end one passage 'got' me in all the feels: "Maybe grief is love imploding. Or maybe it's love expanding. I don't know. I just know you can't create loss to preempt loss because it doesn't work that way. So you might as well love as much as you can. And recklessly. Like it's your last resort, because it is."
This book should particularly resonate with mothers of grown children.

A woman and her family vacation at the same beach house every year. She is middle aged with twenty something children and aging parents (hence the title, she is sandwiched in her family.) The book takes place over the week of their annual trip as Rocky reflects on her life and what's to come.

This is a book where very little happens. They go to the beach. She thinks about her time when her kids were little. She makes sandwiches. There is LOTS of talk about menopause and intergenerational sex talk that I could have done without. I think I would have enjoyed this book more without all the sex and sexual organ and function talk (it is sprinkled throughout and was just a turn off for me.) Perhaps I am not quite old enough to have been the proper audience for this book. Overall, this was ok and luckily not too long but it did not live up to the hype for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

Sandwich is the story of Rocky, a mother, daughter, wife, and a woman going through menopause, on vacation with her adult children and aging parents in Cape Code. A someone who grew up doing the weekly beach vacation, I absolutely loved how it was broken down by days, the description of their rental, and the various feelings while you're on vacation. While I have young children, I could relate to so much in Rocky, especially as she described the early days with her kids. Catherine Newman writes in an almost stream of consciousness way that you can feel the chaos and sadness going on inside Rocky. A beautiful, well written book.

Sandwich tells the story of a 50-something year old woman named Rocky on a family vacation in Cape Cod with her grown children and her elderly parents. This one week vacation evokes memories of past vacations, life experiences, parenting small children, complexities of marriage, and the joys and hardships of the female body.

Though I jokingly celebrate my 27th birthday every year, it’s time to confess that I’m far from my 20s. My 50s are just around the corner. And with that has come so many weird changes that no one ever warned me about. That being said, I’m also the mom that got to hear the words “geriatric pregnancy” a lot—a term that should be banned in my opinion. Surely we can come up with something better? I digress. Hearing that term means my three kids are on the younger side. So, parts of this book resonated with me—those not-so-fun effects of growing older—but I’ve not quite reached the grown children stage. I’m currently in the vacationing with small children phase and I’m really tired.

While I was able to relate to so much of this book, ultimately I was left a bit conflicted. It was humorous and emotional and I enjoyed the story. Unfortunately, some of the characters just didn’t work for me and, at times, it seemed a bit outrageous. But what I did appreciate is the honest look at everything a woman’s body endures. Goodness, it’s a lot. And Rocky’s story really expresses all the changes, physical and mental, that we are supposed to just deal with quietly. And I’m really tired of dealing with all of it quietly. This book gave me a lot to think about and I certainly enjoyed that aspect of it.

Thanks to @netgalley and @harperbooks for the advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review.

This was a stunning, nostalgic, funny and melancholy book. I highlighted so many great comedic moments. The book really resonated with me as someone who is navigating the insult of menopause as my teen becomes his own hormonal independent self and as my parents age with health scares of their own. I will definitely be reading more my Catherine Newman!

Being perfectly sandwiched in age between her aging parents and her adult children, the main character, Rocky, exists in a liminal state of being that gives her a unique perspective on motherhood.

This was lovely. The voice was so fresh, funny, real, and relatable. Newman really captures the nuance and complexity of being a mom, particularly the way multiple emotions and desires coexist simultaneously at all times, and the way you are both entirely your own person yet also entirely not. It's a beautiful, bittersweet story that manages to be both light and heavy, a beach read and a family drama. Set during a summer beach trip in Cape Cod, it had me feeling nostalgic for New England and hankering for a lobster roll.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper for the eARC.

What can I say? SANDWICH is a book that will stay with me for a long time. Newman manages to beautifully encapsulate the emotional rollercoaster that is the life of a middle-aged woman in this brief novel spread over a week in Cape Cod. Once a time of life grossly overlooked in literature, this beautiful story brings it front and center. Will happily hand sell this title!

🥪Rocky, in the midst of menopause, is with her family for a week at the modest home on Cape Cod that the family has rented for more than a decade. With her is her husband, her two kids in their 20s, her son’s girlfriend, and her parents who are both in their 70s.

🥪During the week, the family basks in its usual routine with some surprises and some secrets are revealed.

🥪My thoughts: This is my favorite book that I have read this year. It gets middle age and motherhood right. I loved everything about it — the writing, the story, the intention behind every word on the page. This is a masterpiece and I will be handing out to my friends.

Thank you, Catherine Newman. I’m not yet at the stage of grown children (my oldest is heading to 9th grade and my youngest to K), but you hit menopause in a way that I have never seen it in literature. So right. I read many lines aloud to my husband, but I don’t think he found them as amusing and spot on as I did. But I’m not alone! I never thought of the description a “husk,” but oh man! Perfect. 🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽