This was an intimate and intricately plotted novella about a troubled marriage set in 1950s suburbia. I really enjoyed that we got both the husband's and wife's POVs - both were very flawed but REAL individuals struggling to exist as a couple and a separate person in an anxiety-inducing world where a dog was sent to space to die and everything seemed both futile and possible at the same time. Compelling and well written, this was a quick, moving read. Definitely recommended. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

Just a cute little short story about a woman enjoying the pool at her apartment complex........um NO! Not at all! This is a solid swim in the waters of housewife ennui. Artfully staged, the writing bounces between setting the scene and then filling in the characters to end up with an amazingly rich story tetris-like configured into less than 150 pages! And while I can't really say that I liked any of the main characters, I did enjoy seeing how it all fit together. Take an afternoon, (and a cocktail), and enjoy this cool escape!

I absolutely loved this book! In my opinion, THE MOST is one of the best new releases of 2024 so far. Told in the span of eight hours, the story follows Kathleen and Virgil, a couple whose marriage is seemingly perfect from the outside looking in. It's an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957 and instead of accompanying Virgil and their two sons to church, Kathleen decides to get in the pool of their apartment complex...and she won't come out. What secrets are Kathleen and Virgil keeping from each other? And will the fallout tear their relationship apart—or keep it together, however precariously?

If you love stories set in the 1950s and quiet, character-driven reads, and if Betty Draper was your favorite character in Mad Men (check, check, and check), then THE MOST is the book for you. While the story is short, at only 144 pages, Jessica Anthony ensures that readers get to know these characters and their world so well, it's as if you've spent so much more time with them. I also enjoyed how she uses flashbacks throughout the narrative, painting a clear picture of Kathleen and Virgil's lives both before they met each other and after, the things they're hiding from each other (and maybe even themselves), all of the potential paths they could have taken, the many ways that things could have gone differently. Kathleen's storyline was a particular highlight for me—it was so interesting to follow her journey from star tennis player at the University of Delaware to stifled housewife, and how this affected her. When you're seeing so many of the same events unfold from two different perspectives, it can be easy for things to feel monotonous, but that never happened here, as Anthony is such a talented storyteller and writer that even rehashing the same moment or conversation made me see things in a new light and understand the characters better through a different lens. Needless to say, I'd highly recommend THE MOST! Add it to your summer reading list ASAP—it's the perfect choice for a beautiful day spent at (of course) the pool. Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown & Company for the ARC.

I loved this book and started recommending it before I was even halfway through! Honestly, it wasn’t what I expected—I’d anticipated the pool to play a much larger role in the narrative, maybe dip a toe into magical realism or surrealism. But the story did not disappoint. The structure, length, and pacing were all fantastic. It felt like a friend sharing messy gossip: I was enthralled to learn more secrets about this marriage, and ultimately I was rooting for both characters, but to fall apart or to come together, I’m not sure.

A delightful, short story revealing the secrets of a mediocre marriage. A series of events has led Kathleen to retreat to the community pool. Her husband Virgil, her sons and the neighbors watch from their balconies as hour after hour she remains. Through introspection of both characters we learn the disappointments of their lives, both together and alone. We learn of their betrayals and wrong decisions but also of their commitment to each other and the family they have become.
This short story ended so brilliantly, right on the cusp of the next act. The writing was poetic and smooth and this can be devoured in a single morning.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

This novella had me reading it not in one sitting because it was short, but because I had no desire to put it down. Alternating between Kathleen and Virgil's POVs, you delve into their seemingly mundane world and loveless marriage, trailing through their past and present as one day in November finally causes the thin paper house to crumble around them. The blurb on the back, along with cover, peaked my interest, and the narrative quickly captivated my attention. I loved seeing the cracks in their marriage slowly be exposed as the two main characters slowly come to terms with the life they lived and the one that they could.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown for an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

The Most is a quirky novella about a mother who skips church one Sunday morning and instead enters her Delaware apartment building’s inground pool on an unseasonably warm day in November and doesn’t get out. A simple idea, yes, but it is done amazingly well.
Able to be read in a single sitting, The Most explores marriage and its relationship to power dynamics and obligations in the 1950s. In under 150 pages, the author crafts characters that the reader knows intimately, understanding the main character, her husband, their marriage, and their relocation to Delaware. I thought of the Wayne’s World, “Hi, I’m in Delaware” line which is entirely applicable here. Both main characters are threatened by the impending divulgence of their long-held secrets, and I began to hold my breath in anticipation as key pieces were revealed to me while reading. This book will publish at the end of the month, and I definitely recommend it for a quick but deep read. I also absolutely love the cover!
And in case you noticed, I’ve posted two Little, Brown reviews in a row for upcoming book releases - can you tell how much I like their books?! Thanks to Little, Brown and NetGalley for early access to this title in exchange for my honest opinion.

Two people stuck in a loveless marriage cheat on each other and then she spends the day in a pool running from reality. Not the vibe I was looking for.

As a child of divorce, it definitely was accurate and all the characters were complex, loveable and so goddamn hateable.

The novella format and dual POV was great although the timeline bouncing from time to time, repeating events, etc. was confusing. I would have preferred that this happen over a longer time span if it meant that the timeline wasn't bouncing back and forth as much.

A short but compelling story about a marriage gone awry. Great character development and fabulous story development. Sometimes it takes a while for what one knows in one’s heart to be acted upon is the moral of this story.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

I can't say exactly what I expected from this book, but it's not what I got.  I was lured by the blurb from a favorite author, and by the cover art that was both mundane and mysterious all at once. 

This is a little slice of life, just eight hours long, one warm Sunday afternoon when Kathleen takes a dip in the pool and Virgil goes golfing, but of course during those eight hours Virgil and Kathleen remember past events leading up to this present moment, so it may be a narrow slice, but it is also deep.  I was mesmerized and I read it all in one sitting, unable to put it down.

This is a galley, so I am not to quote from it, which is a shame, because this book has the perfect line about a life being made of little things and small repetitions.

The title gradually makes sense, which I always find satisfying.  "The Most" is a tennis strategy that Kathleen learned from her high school tennis coach.

One thing that drove me to distraction:  Virgil acquires "a brand-new '57 Buick Bluebird" which is later described as a low end four door hardtop sedan with lots of chrome trim and modest tail fins.  Every other historical fact in this book appears to be true, but ... Buick never made a car called a "Bluebird."  Did Anthony just make a mistake and never correct it?  The other car models Vance owned are actual cars, did she mean for this to be a Buick Roadmaster that the family nicknamed "Bluebird" because it was blue?  Did she mean another make?  The 1957 Ford Thunderbird and 1957 Buick Skylark were unavailable as four-door sedans.   Did she mean a 1957 Nissan Bluebird, which apparently was an actual car, but I never heard of it.  Is this an error that will be corrected prior to publication?  Or is this some sort of big joke that I didn't understand?

I thank NetGalley, Little Brown, Hachette, and the author for this free uncorrected ebook.

I think a big part of my enjoyment in this one is being a Delaware native and having gone to UD. Following along as the narrator spoke about her dorm, growing up in Wilmington, and the Newark campus was really cool - especially because I’ve rarely seen Delaware mentioned in the books I read.

All that aside, The Most was a fun deep-dive (pun intended,) into a 1950s family’s dynamics. The book takes places over the course of an afternoon spent with a housewife, Kathleen, refusing to get out of the pool. During this time, her and her husband flashback to dalliances in their marriage, where things could have gone differently, and where they go from here.

To me, The Most was an examination of a seemingly perfect family, with their cracks exposed to the reader. Whether intended by the author or not, I appreciate the “What Ifs” in this one, and think that anyone struggling with their current position in life will really appreciate this read. There are a million different lives we could have lead, but we are here right now and that’s something pretty incredible!

Check this one out if you like literary fiction, family drama, and character driven writing!

**Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown & Company for the eARC of this excellent title!**

I really enjoyed this novella about a husband and wife living in Newark, Delaware in the 50s. I liked that we got to read the point of view of both Kathleen and Virgil and how we got to know their secrets and desires in alternating chapters. I felt the setting, the time period and the place, were very well-fleshed out and added helped intensify the tensions between characters. I think this would be a great selection for a high school or university class.

I had no idea what to expect of this novel going in (a woman goes swimming then refuses to get out of the pool?), but I was transfixed. I don't know how Anthony did it, but this short novel held my attention all the way through. Such a strange delight. Thanks to the publisher for the egalley!

The Most truly punches above its weight - a slim 140 pages, but the portraits of our two main characters are incredibly detailed. The novel volleys between Kathleen (Kathy) and Virgil, a married couple with two kids who recently moved to Delaware in the 1950s. Kathy skips church on a hot Sunday in November and spends the whole day in the pool while Virgil golfs with his work buddies. While the premise may sound banal, The Most is anything but. We are treated to intimate portraits of both Kathy and Virgil and how they've come to this juncture in their life. As the story unfolds, we learn that they could not be more different people - Kathy was a driven, competitive tennis player, while Virgil floated along in life and only snapped out of it after his impending marriage.

They both have fucked around, but will they find out?

The writing in The Most is incredible, you get such a good sense of the struggles of the times and the societal pressures put on Kathy...and how they are not really put on Virgil. I also love a good open-ended ending and will be pondering how these two will live their lives after confronting all of their many questionable decisions. The only thing I didn't quite jive with was the references to Sputnik, but I'm hoping that will mesh more on a re-read.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the copy.

Delighted to include this title in the July edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

A woman skips church with her husband and children to swim in their apartment complex pool and then refuses to come out when they return. If that sounds boring to you, trust me it’s not. This is a slim novel but somehow manages to pack in the entire back story of a marriage where you learn about secrets, grievances and desires from both sides. I loved the tension, especially towards the ending.

During an unusually warm November day in Delaware, and Kathleen decides to stay home from church because she’s feeling unwell. When her husband Virgil and two children return home, they find her in the apartment’s pool, and she doesn’t want to get out. The plot feels so simplistic, but Jessica Anthony treats us to a vivid, and multilayered backstory that unfolds beautifully on the page. Once immersed in Kathleen & Virgil’s world, we see how flawed and nuanced they both are beneath the surface of their seemingly perfect mid-century marriage. Secrets are slowly unraveled through husband and wife’s alternating perspectives, while power dynamics and gender roles are thoroughly explored. The story also meditates on unfulfilled dreams and lives not lived. While I didn’t feel deeply connected to either character, I still really enjoyed the story overall, and highly look forward to checking out more of Anthony’s titles in the future.

A slim novel, all of 144 pages, set in the 1950s, that dives into the marriage of Kathleen and Virgil. A more innocent time one may wrongly think about the 1950s, at least it is not innocent for this married couple with two sons, whose lives, especially during the course of their marriage thus far, are filled with un-marital behavior and secrets. Kathleen, who'd thought she might have what it takes to become a professional tennis player, opted for the safer course of marriage and children, and yet she isn't constrained so much by her husband - nor is he constrained by her - but by the choices she herself made, that she didn't have to make. The set-up is clever, on a fall day that seems warm as summer, Kathleen, fearing what awaits her in the future, opts out of Sunday church - the family-churchgoing a new activity that Virgil has instituted for his own reasons - and gets into the pool in the apartment complex where the family has been living, ostensibly temporarily, and stays there for the next several hours. She. her past and parents and aspirations and loves, are not the only focus, Virgil gets equal, if not more, time, his life and father and workdays, are under examination, and hours later the question left open-ended is whether they will or won't move forward together. I enjoyed the throwback, the details, the revelation of secrets, and found it interesting that no present-day sensibility really intruded on the unfolding story. That being said, I also lost some interest along the way and I'm not sure why.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and Netgalley for the arc.

"From "one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page" (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family's apartment complex one morning and won't come out.

It is an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957. Katheen, a college tennis champion turned Delaware housewife, decides not to join her flagrantly handsome life insurance salesman husband, Virgil, or their two young boys, at church. Instead, she takes a dip in the kidney-shaped swimming pool of their apartment complex. And then she won't come out.

A riveting, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, Kathleen and Virgil hurtle towards each other until they arrive at a reckoning that will either shatter their marriage, or transform it, at last, into something real."

There's something so nostalgic about this book.

I did not like this at all. It was full of repetitive writing and story telling. Ultimately, this was just a sad and boring story of a husband and wife who have continuously cheated on one another and have always been unhappy in their marriage. This was not the story that I thought I was going to get and I hated it.