Mesmerizing cover? Uneasy 1950s marriage? All takes place in one afternoon? Short enough to read in one sitting?

Oh that sounds like a five star read to me!

Kathleen was once a tennis champion with all the potential in the world but she's now mostly identified by her role as a suburban wife and mom. Only she's found her old red bathing suit and she's taken to the community pool! And refuses to come out.

Such intrigue!

Of course I loved this one. By the last two chapters I was hanging on every single word, completely riveted. Anthony does such a fantastic job of building tension even in the most (seemingly) mundane of environments.

The chapters switch back and forth between Kathleen and her husband, Virgil which provides such interesting context as you're reading. We've got flashbacks and all kinds of goodies that just add to the story.

Want a short lit fic book with fascinating characters that explores the underbelly of marriage? Pick this one up, for sure!

Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This just didn't work for me. If I'm being honest, it felt very reminiscent of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, without bringing much else to the table.

The premise was solid -- Kathleen is dissatisfied with the life she and her husband, Virgil, have created for themselves. One afternoon, she decides to get into the apartment complex's pool and is unwilling to get out. As someone who also hates getting out of pools, I was intrigued. However, this didn't become the sort of unhinged narrative I was bracing myself for.

Rather, it was focused more around the fact that these two individuals are terrible partners to one another. While I can appreciate the small bits of commentary that landed, I wasn't moved by any of it. The characters were dull. The situation was boring. And I had higher expectations for it than I probably should have.

This was a very quick read for me and I can't say I was bored, but I also can't say this book said much of anything. I feel like slice-of-life literary fiction that isn't *about* anything is very in vogue recently, and I can get down with that sometimes. But those books do actually have something to say. Here, I didn't particularly like either of the characters or feel like I got to know or sympathize with them, and there wasn't much of a plot to fall back on.

At the end of the day, I didn't feel too let down because this book wasn't that long, but I probably won't be going around recommending this to anyone.

I tried multiple times to get into this novel, but the jumps in time were disorienting and the plot felt lackluster and empty. I was hoping for more of a surrealist novel, perhaps. Or maybe even more of a character study of the community, rather than solely following the husband and wife. Nothing about this novel felt revolutionary.

The book was seriously so amazing! It was set over eight hours, and it took longer than that to read, and I just wanted to speed through it! It was poignant, it was exciting, and it was heartfelt.

(Thanks to @littlebrown #gifted.) Novellas often don’t work well for me, but that was NOT the case with 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 by Jessica Anthony. This slim novel tells the story of Kathleen and Virgil, a married couple with two young sons. It’s November of 1957 and the launch of Sputnik 2 is in the news. On an unseasonably warm Sunday, Virgil and their sons go off to church, but Kathleen begs off. When they leave, she slips into the pool at their apartment complex. There she stays hour after hour.⁣
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There’s a push and pull going on between Virgil and Kathleen. As the story moves on, and Kathleen refuses to leave the pool, we learn about the dark secrets each holds. Secrets that could upend their lives… or save them. It all depends on who can play them better. I found this to be an extremely engaging, extremely unique read. It was a beautifully told story of a marriage on the brink. Anthony’s storytelling make its place on 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘈𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 so well deserved. At 144 pages, you can read it in a single afternoon and I think you’ll be glad you did. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

i DID NOT expect this to be as good as it turned out to be. from a simple, if slightly peculiar premise of a woman going into a pool and not coming out, a massive story opening the lives of the characters better than many 300-500page novels is expanded on and fulfilled in a 150-page book. 5stars

This novella takes place during a single day, 11/3/1957, the day Sputnik 2 launched with dog Laika inside, and tells the story of the marriage of Virgil and Kathleen Beckett. As Virgil takes their children to church, Kathleen decides to take advantage of the warm November day and enjoy the pool in their apartment complex. Only she refuses to get out once her husband and children return. As she sits in the pool, we learn about the events that led up to this point in the marriage and to the breaking point they face.

Anthony has written a intriguing character study focusing on the mid-century marriage. Kathleen feels stifled in her role as mother and Virgil is stuck in his role as a mediocre (if that) insurance salesman, a role he never really wanted to begin with but felt he needed to provide for his family. I enjoyed how the story kept adding complications to their situation as it went along but left the ending open for the reader.

Rating:4.25 rounded down

"The Most" by author, Jessica Anthony, is a compact novel. While it would be wildly wrong to call this a horror, Anthony writes a terrifying tale of what happens to love mixed with complacency.

It's the 1950's and husband and wife, Virgil and Kathleen are a typical family from the outside-- two healthy boys, a marriage of nine years, a new car, church-goers. But nothing is what it seems. The story takes place over a short time span, yet readers get to experience the entire lives of the married couple. Kathleen decided to take a dip in the pool and refuses to get out, Virgil tries his best to coax her out, but nothing seems to work until one moment, when everything comes to a peak.

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I absolutely loved "The Most". It's short. You can read it in one sitting, and it delivers. I typically don't like stories of affairs but Anthony layers so many human emotions within her characters. It's a must read and it's for sure a book to get anybody out of a reading slump.

Thank you author, Jessica Anthony, publisher Little Brown and Company, and Netgalley for bringing this title to us.

This was short and speedy read. I have been watching Mad Men on Netflix recently, so this mid-century short story about a bored and lonely housewife and her philandering business husband was very on theme.

Alternating between Kathleen and Virgil’s perspectives, back and forth through time, the story is character-driven as we learn about the complexities and secrets of our husband and wife duo and how their life together has unfolded. I usually like this kind of story but the plot of “The Most” was only ok. I had a trouble getting invested in the characters, and there wasn’t any emotional payoff at the end to bring the unlikable MCs to some new place. Well written with excellent time/place description, but a little disappointing overall.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC!

a little snapshot of this married couple in the 1950's swapping perspectives to explore how unlikeable they are and awful for each other. I really expected more weird and more scandals from this. Also, whoever called this "thrilling" needs to go outside and talk to a singular human being because where

1950s Housewife’s Marital Discontent

The Most by Jessica Anthony is a tightly wound novella set in the 1950s, revolving around a single day in the life of Kathleen and Virgil, a married couple facing a moment of crisis. On an unusually warm Sunday, Kathleen decides to skip church and instead spends the day in the swimming pool of their apartment complex, refusing to come out. This decision sets the stage for a day of introspection and confrontation, both for Kathleen and Virgil, as they grapple with their individual and shared discontents.

Jessica Anthony's The Most is a compelling and intense novella that offers a darkly comic look at marital discontent and societal expectations in the 1950s. Its vivid writing and complex characters make it a memorable read, despite some minor shortcomings in character development. For readers looking for a quick yet impactful read, The Most is highly recommended.

I don’t know if it’s the Gen-X in me, but I find stories about women doing nothing incredibly compelling: the act of deciding to do nothing is not just apathy, but is, in and of itself, a decision–an action–to take no action. This going all the way back to Aimee Bender‘s 2003 A Dive From Clausen‘s Pier, where the character is torn about admitting to admit that she was going to break off the engagement to her fiancé as he lies in a coma after a diving accident; to Rowan Beaird’s The Divorcees, about women in a special residential hotel in Reno waiting for their divorces to be finalized; to more recently, Alison Espach’s very compelling The Wedding People, about a woman waiting out her weekend in a luxury resort with intent to kill herself at the end of her five-star stay. The Most is about a housewife and mother who skips church, goes for a swim, and simply decides to refuse to come out of her apartment complex’s swimming pool one fall afternoon.

Set in 1957 and centered around the dissatisfaction of mid-century middle class America, this brief story captures the relationship of Kathleen and her husband to one another and their two sons. The narrative moves back-and-forth between Virgil and Kathleen, and is a model of differentiation, with each spouse having their own secrets, sorrows, wants and needs, and it is an unflinching unravelling of what’s behind a marriage.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #TheMost via #NetGalley courtesy of Little, Brown and Company.

Despite a poorly-timed gothic turn near the end, this is a clever postwar suburban malaise melodrama which stands apart due to the truly unique strangeness of its serially untruthful married protagonists.

this book is uniquely confusing — not because it's about a woman refusing to get out of a pool (normal, relatable), but because there were so many inconsistencies. i had trouble telling what was going on.

One of the best books I have read this year! It was incredible feat by the author to get so much information, and so much feeling!!!, into less than 150 pages. I will recommend this book to everyone I know.

This reads like a novel written in the time when it was set, the late 1950's, when the world felt so different but yet so much the same. I don't know how Jessica Anthony did it but I am so very glad that she did!

In Jessica Anthony's The Most, we follow Kathleen, a 1950's housewife who, one day, refuses to get out of her apartment complex's pool. We follow Kathleen and her husband over the course of this day, as we delve deeper into her psyche, life, and relationships.

While I was intrigued by this book's premise and setting, I never felt like I was able to connect with the characters in any meaningful way. While this book had interesting themes, I think the story and characterization felt too thin for me to ever feel truly engaged. Still, this book may be of interest to people who are interested in mid=century gender dynamics.

A really short read that unspools the story of a marriage over one day when a 1950s housewife refuses to leave her apartment complex's pool.

Kathleen, a former tennis star is not living the life she imagines. Virgil, her insurance salesman husband, is just as disillusioned. And they have both been harbouring life-shattering secrets from each other. Over the course of 8 hours we get glimpses of both people, their choices and dreams, and the mistakes they've made, ultimately unsure of what might happen next.

The atmosphere in this is just pitch-perfect. It feels very of the time and I really love how your assumptions and judgements about this couple change and evolve over the course of the novel. Nothing is quite as it seems.

It's probably good that it's a short punch of a novel because I'm not quite sure it could have been sustained much longer, it's a bit of a wide lens on the whole situation, without really delving too deep, but that really worked here for me.

THE MOST opens on a warm November day. It's nine years into Kathleen and Virgil's marriage, and they're at a crossroads. Through alternating chapters, we discover the secrets they've kept. Kathy wiles away the day in the pool as her husband grows increasingly agitated by her detached behavior.

The title comes from what Kathy's Czech tennis instructor framed as a powerful tennis play that must be seldom used; a "bridge" that leads to certain success, if sparingly employed. The setup is clearly signaled towards the end, but that doesn't lessen the enjoyment of seeing it play out.

Reminiscent of Claire Keegan, Jessica Anthony crafts a well executed story in this stim yet powerful novel.

(Thank you to Little, Brown and Company for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows a housewife that one day just decides to get in the pool and refuses to get out.

I thought this book was just ok. I don't think it packed the full punch that I was looking for. It was not bad though and the writing was good. I just wish it went a bit deeper and explored the characters a bit more.

This one is not bad but not my favorite.