I had heard a lot about this book going into it, and I understand why it is so well-liked. This is the study of a family whose well-practiced balance of dysfunction is turned upside down when Marley enters their lives. Part mystery, but mostly a study of family, Mercury drew me in and didn't let go.

The narration was great as well.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for a free copy of #Mercury by Amy Jo Burns. All opinions are my own.

“They were all marionettes in the house Mick Joseph had built, dangling from his fingers, jumping to life at the flick of his wrist.” - From Mercury by Amy Jo Burns

Burns fastidiously chooses the words to a small town mystery set in Pennsylvania in the 90s. Centered around three brothers, their parents, and Marley, the wife of one of the brothers, this character-driven family drama is superb. The thoughtful, lyrical writing will satiate fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and The Dutch House.

“In the Joseph family, Mick aimed for the impossible, Waylon hoped for the best, Baylor planned for the worst. And Shay? Shay Baby was all right, always.”

Burns gives each character a distinct presence and develops their character as the story unfolds over multiple years. I love when a story can make you root for a flawed character and give depth to them.

I don’t want to say much about the plot other than that I enjoyed reading about this problematic family of roofers who struggle with communication, secrets, forgiveness, and love.

I hope this book is made into a movie. It’s the type of storytelling that would be in contention for awards. While it’s only March, I imagine this book will be in my top three for the year.

I highlighted a number of beautifully descriptive lines throughout the book. Here are a few of them:

“Shay loved best when he said, Show me your worst thing. I promise I won’t look away.”

“I wish I knew if I should have tried harder to be a daughter, or harder to be a wife.”

“He thought this might be love – to see past the worst parts of someone, to never see them at all.”

I read The Shiner by this author, which I also enjoyed. Amy Jo Burns is now a must-read author for me. 💛

Thank you to @netgalley for an ARC of this book.

"Mercury" by Amy Jo Burns presents a poignant coming-of-age story with vivid narration. However, the pacing occasionally falters, and some plot points feel underdeveloped. While it offers moments of emotional resonance, it may not fully satisfy listeners seeking a more robust narrative. I was expecting to enjoy this more

I enjoyed this family drama with a little mystery. The complex personalities and relationships and the evolution of them made for an engrossing story. The audio was well done for this one as well.
I will say the mystery part was my least favorite part of the book and would have preferred just more character driven without the mystery. I am probably in the minority for that but my honest thoughts.

I tried but I just couldnt get into this one. I think it was a bit too character driven for me. I know so many that loved it, but it wasn't for me.

A fabulous blend of mystery & family drama.

In 1990, 17-year-old Marley moves to Mercury. She enters as an outsider even as she becomes swept up into the Joseph family, “Soon…young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all.” Her search for true belonging continues as she becomes privy to increasingly jarring family secrets. She and the sons orbit around the crushing gravity of a narcissistic father and a mother who learned to survive through silence. As the roofing business begins to tank and the Joseph sons find their mother slipping away, Marley is the sustaining force that keeps everything spinning until a disturbing discovery in the church attic threatens to throw the family’s fragile bonds into upheaval beyond repair.


This one speaks volumes when it didn’t seem like it would. It carries all the emotions into one and made it a very enjoyable read.

Do you like a dysfunctional family story ? This is a great one that centers on the Joseph Family - roofers with a small family business in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Things change in unexpected ways when Marley and her mom come town. Marley is chasing a steady form of happiness in friendships and relationships after being constantly on the move but will she find it in the town of Mercury ? Wonderfully well-written with complex layered characters. I definitely rooted for Marley. But also for Elise and the Joseph men, bit by bit we get perspectives from all of them and start to understand what moves them.
The audio is narrated wonderfully by Maria Liatis.

This book has it all

Complicated family dynamics
Small town setting
Multiple POV's
Secrets
Brotherhood
A 1990s timeline
Womanhood, motherhood and marriage
Mystery
a great cast of flawed and complicated characters
a Coming-of-age story

I did not want this one to end - with books like this one I would always love a longer epilogue when the dust has settled a bit more.
I read Amy Jo Burns‘ Shiner with the @mmdbookclub and loved my reading and the author chat, so after loving this one now I‘ll just read whatever AJB tackles next.

Mercury was an enjoyable read. I appreciated the family dynamics and exploration of family drama. Great on audio.

Mercury by Amy Jo Burns is about the Joseph family that runs a roofing business in Mercury — a small blue collar town. One day, Marley and her mom, a nurse who goes where the jobs are, move to town and Marley is intrigued by the Joseph boys and their stern matriarch. However, entangling herself in the Joseph family isn’t quite as she expected, and what follows is a life full of secrets, passion, love, and family — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Ok so I struggle with family dramas because they could be gut-wrenchingly beautiful (like HELLO BEAUTIFUL) or like watching a car crash and not being able to look away (WE ARE THE BRENNENS). I do think MERCURY falls somewhere in between but skews on the better end for me.

First and foremost, this is Marley’s story and it wouldn’t have it any other way. Gosh I loved her as a protagonist — because outside of very few chapters, she is. I loved seeing the family through her eyes.

This book is also pretty exciting? There’s a suspicious death, a mysterious illness, a surprise baby, and all the while some great character development and writing.

I liked the audiobook for this one — it’s very well done… but I don’t recommend it 😬 I don’t think I was really enjoying the book until I started reading it on my kindle. Then I really fell in love with Marley. Maybe this is a me thing! But I think the book translates best through reading.

Amy Jo Burns' "Mercury," narrated by Maria Liatis, is about the Joseph family, their roofing business and the complications of working and living under one roof. The story is framed around Marley West, a likable 17-year-old, who ends up joining the Joseph family due to an unexpected pregnancy. Then she tries to make sense of her place within the family, it's members and the business ... all while finding her own footing.

Admittedly, it took me a while to grasp the characters and story, but it got interesting. Ultimately, the family drama and ALLLLL the family drama and secrets make "Mercury" a compelling read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the early listener copy. Maria Liatis did a great job narrating.

This is a character driven novel that revolves around Marley and her roles with the Joseph family. The storytelling was done well, it moves as the characters age and has a little bit of a mystery in the first part of it and more details as the book continues. I thought that was a nice touch to add to a character driven story. The audiobook was done well and captivated me from the beginning.

Outstanding. I loved Amy Jo Burn's Shiner last year and was thrilled to learn about this new book. My family is from the Pittsburgh area, so the setting was especially lovely for me, but more than anything the story swept away. This book, at its heart, is about the women of the Joseph family and how they contend with and nurture the men of the family. Marley is nuanced and thoughtful protagonist who will stick with you long after finishing this book. A note: the cover copy talks about the discovery in the church attic, but to be clear that mystery is secondary to the story of the family. This is a lit fic book, not a mystery. The narrator was new to me, but did a beautiful job in that format too.

This was an interesting read for me. I found the characters and family dynamics compelling and I wanted to know where this was going. The mystery element of the body in the church wasn't very mysterious, so I did find that this part of the story lacked tension. I also felt that this book was a little bit uneven in its pacing, but overall it was enjoyable.

I have to admit, I found it a bit challenging to get into "Mercury," but when I finally did, it was pretty good, but definitely not uplifting or inspiring in any way.

It's the story of a dysfunctional family and the young girl, Marley, they suck into their midst, who eventually becomes their guiding light. But in all honesty, some of the choices the people in this family, including Marley, make out of blind loyalty result in them being a bit unlikeable. Almost every member of the family would rather figure out how to live with a life-altering secret than to face the truth and take the consequences of their actions.

A lot of that has to be with being in a small town setting, which can sometimes seem more judgmental than cities, where you can live in anonymity. Since the family didn't want to live with gossip or scandal, even knowing that such things are usually short-lived in small towns, they avoided telling the truth, even amongst each other.

I found it hard to relate to any of the characters in any way and mostly just felt sorry for them all. The "test of loyalty" that's mentioned in the description isn't a healthy kind of loyalty. It's blind and undeserved in many instances. So it's hard to feel good about too much in the story...

I will say too that in listening to the audiobook, I was a bit surprised by a few completely mispronounced words. For example, when the color "garnet" was mentioned, the emphasis was put on the last syllable when it belongs on the first. There were a couple of other words like that as well. So that was a bit disappointing, but overall, the audio narration was good.

Thanks to Amy Jo Burns, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

I saw so many people reviewing Amy Jo Burn's Mercury before it came out, so my first instinct was to avoid it. I tend to be disappointed by very hyped books on bookstagram, but when I saw it being offered on Netgalley, and read the synopsis, I found it hard to pass up. Probably one of my favorite genre's, if you can call it that, is a family saga. I love reading about the struggles, and mostly how they seems to always over come them. I find it uplifting, so I will have to admit, I was wrong about Mercury, it was a pleasure to spend my time with the Joseph family.
Main character Marley is married to the oldest Joseph boy, who helps run thee family roofing business. The story basically follows the ups and downs of their life together and with the rest of the family.
Mercury is certainly a character driven story, but I like that about the book, the characters in a story is always important to me. All the characters are relatable and you will find yourself quickly becoming absorbed into their lives and story as a whole. Burns did a wonderful job breathing life into each character she wrote. The writing is clear, Burns does not get wordy or try to over describe a situation.
This is a book about a family, a beautiful and sometimes messy family. A family that loves deeply, and that you will also come to love, because of the realness of the story and the characters. I found myself caring about them, and caring about what happened to them, and to me that makes for a very successful book.
Pick this one up, you won't regret it. Mercury is out now.

I enjoyed this book, but not nearly as much as it seems like everyone else did. I saw so many raves about this incredible family drama, but I wasn't sucked in as much as I have been with other family drama books I've read.

I felt the same way about Mercury as I did Hello Beautiful. I liked it, but I was seriously confounded by all the hype it got. I'm just having trouble figuring out what people loved SO much about it. And I wonder if my own opinion about it would be different if I hadn't seen so many people talking about how amazing it was before I read it.

If you loved Hello Beautiful, I feel like this will likely be up your alley, too. It also reminded me a bit of We Are the Brennans.

It definitely won't go down as my favorite family drama and certainly won't make it on to my top books of the year list, but I still found it a fairly enjoyable audiobook to listen to and I did like getting to know the Joseph family.

I fell for the cover on this one, and it did sound like it could be a good story – “a roofing family’s bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town” – but the writing was not remarkable.

Mercury reads like a plot summary. This book was a slog.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook version of this book. I am not affiliated with any entities-persons-organizations of any sort. I am not compensated for my review in any way. Everything I write is my own personal opinion-thoughts- and feelings.

The author is a new to me author. I did not have any expectations going into this book. I have to admit I did start this book several weeks back- I was able to make it 10% way through the book before I stopped. I couldnt get into the book. Fast forward to several weeks later I decided to give the book one more go before putting in my DNF shelf. I am very happy I came back to the book.
This was family drama at its best. Teen pregnancy then marriage. Family roofing business. A murder. Trying to find who you are when you're a young family.
This was a great book!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Amy Jo Burns for the gifted ARC.

This novel weaves together the threads of a roofing family’s loyalty and resilience. Set in the blue-collar town of Mercury in 1990, the story unfolds as Marley West, a seventeen-year-old girl who desperately is seeking connection, encounters the Joseph brothers. Marley grows from a lonely girl to a beautiful woman. She becomes a mother to the youngest Joseph brother and does whatever it takes to keep him safe. The family faces many challenges and some huge secrets. It is a story of survival and love and resilience.

While I don’t tend to read a lot of Literary Fiction, it was hard not to let the Joseph’s family take root into my heart.

I’ve been on a romance kick for the last few books, so it was refreshing to dive into this tale of family drama set in a small town during the 1990s.

Part coming-of-age, with a bit of mystery woven throughout, Mercury had such flawed characters, who felt so real and authentic.

🎧I paired the book with the audiobook and really enjoyed the narration. With a multiple POV storyline, it connected me even more into the story.

𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧
🏠character driven
🔎a mysterious discovery
🤫secrets
🏠themes of motherhood, self-discovery
📖multiple POVs

*many thanks to Celadon Books and Macmillan Audio for the gifted copy for review