Jami Attenberg's novels are always full of great character insights and realistic, compelling dialogue. This one follows some interesting characters in both everyday and extraordinary situations. Very readable and nostalgic, but in a good way.

Focusing on a mother and her two daughters, this tells the story of their complex relationships over the course of 40 years. I love the way this author writes but this was my least favorite of hers so far. Just when I started to feel invested in a particular narrative, the story would jump perspectives or skip ahead 10 years. Barely over 200 pages, there just wasn’t enough time to make me care about the characters over such a long period.

Sisters Shelly and Nancy lose their father when they're young, and their mother Freida spirals into addiction. Since he was the one who held their family together, things fall apart for the Cohen women. This story spans multiple decades as Shelly focuses on her career in tech, and Nancy marries young and starts a family. The sisters have a strained relationship, and the only thing they have in common is their Freida, who is drinking her life away in Miami. If you liked Hello Beautiful, I think you'd love this. I thought the characters and pacing of this book were so well done, I couldn't put it down.

Jami Attenberg's latest novel, A Reason to See You Again, explores the life and relationships of the Cohen women. Mother, Frieda, loves her husband deeply and is thrown into a tailspin with his untimely death. Eldest daughter Nancy, with beautiful hair, goes to college, waits tables, and marries and has a daughter. Youngest daughter Shelly, the 'smart one', runs away to the West Coast to begin a career in the emerging tech industry.

We follow these women for decades. From friendships to relationships to various career highs and lows, we see how time and money affect their lives and relationships with each other. One thing I really enjoyed about Attenberg's writing in this book, is the allusions to future problems, successes, etc. It adds a nice touch to these lives.

The story does deal with heavy drinking, sexuality, women in the tech industry - all Attenberg handles effectively and with a gentle touch.

I always feel like I should like Attenberg's books more than I actually do. However, just like The Middlesteins, this one left me wanting something different, something more.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Dysfunctional family dynamics between alcoholic mother Frieda and daughters - smart Shelly and pretty Nancy come to bear upon the death of family patriarch Rudy. The novel spans decades and deals with each making their way in life, and their evolving relationships with others and with each other. The plot lacks depth, and I found the characters formulaic and not particularly likeable. 2.5 stars.

ARC provided by NetGalley and Ecco.

This was a really enjoyable read! I loved seeing the paths of these characters as they broke apart and came back together, each living complex lives full of decisions - both good and bad. I also really loved the narration style - 40+ years felt like it went by with the blink of an eye.

Jami Attenberg's new novel mines the souls of the Cohen family women. Frieda, the mother, and her two daughters, Shelley and Nancy, populate the scenery of life beginning in Chicago. Rudy Cohen dies relatively early, but his and Frieda's approach to parenting is a plot thesis that reverberates throughout the daughters's lives.

I enjoyed Jami Attenberg's superbly written book A Reason to See You Again. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book, which will be published on September 24, 2024.

A kaleidoscopic journey we went on for sure! New to me author with characters that came to life on the pages. Loved the forty year span of the book - i felt like they were my friends and i was part of their family.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

I'm a huge Jami Attenberg fan and was really excited for this, and it did not disappoint. She knows what she does well, and she's done it again -- a thorny family story about the ties that bind and occasionally gag. Two sisters and their mother go back and forth in the Chicago suburbs, wanting to escape each other but never quite figuring it out. The book is a sprawling, multi-generational story that never drags.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book this quiet, so it took me a second to get used to the pacing, but ultimately enjoyed floating in and out of the characters’ lives. There were many beautiful moments (I did a lot of highlighting) celebrating otherwise a fairly average family.

This is a novel about the women of one family as they navigate their lives in the aftermath of the untimely death of their husband and father. The two daughters, Shelly and Nancy, both leave home as soon as possible. Shelly heads to the West Coast for college, ultimately pursuing a career in technology. Nancy ends up married young to a traveling salesman who is a good father but not always much of a husband. And their mother, Frieda, struggles to find her footing without clear direction. As the three women move in and out of each other's lives over the course of several decades, they find that it is not quite as easy to leave behind the ties that bind.

This is a well-written and compelling story, with strong and nuanced characters. Through the three main characters, the author explores both the complexities of family relationships, where those closest to you often feel like strangers, and the period of American history since the 1970s.

Highly recommended!

I so tried to get into this story but it just didn't hold my attention. I'm sure it's a delightful novel but just not for me. It felt stilted and uninteresting. I'm sure others will enjoy it.

A vast sweeping family saga that covers three generations of women, their lives, and the familial ties that keep them bobbing in and out of each others lives.

Thought-provoking and engaging, this book begins in the 1970s and follows a family for the next 4 decades. After patriarch and Holocaust survivor Rudy Cohen dies, his widow, Frieda, and his two daughters are distraught and rudderless. We follow the three as they make decisions, both good and disastrous, with their lives. A great family story that's hard to put down.

I so enjoy Jami Attenberg on Twitter (yup, I sti call it that) and her essays. But, I continue to be a bit disappointed in her novels. This one, same. Just ok.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for the advanced reader copy.

I love Jami Attenberg as a literary citizen (her most recent craft book is a must read for any writers), but I find her fiction to be hit or miss for me. Either the premise and the characters immediately pull me in or I never get that connection. Unfortunately, A Reason to See You Again didn't pull me in. The characters felt at a remove for me and I couldn't hook into the overall narrative.

Jamie Attenberg is an assured writer who knows her territory-generational family malfunction-yet she takes chances, with sudden hairpin turns of narrative structure, POV, and backstory; admirably they pay off. Her prose is sparse and her characters are uniformly compelling. A lot of mutual reader and author trust goes into this book, which examines the heartbreaks, resentments, chaos and the small triumphs of the Cohen family over 4 decades. The focus initially is on gentle, lovely Rudy, a Holocaust survivor, his angry, alcoholic wife, Frieda, and their daughters, the brainiac driven Shelly, and Nancy, a pretty and pleasant girl who does not make waves, even when she is lost in them. Then Rudy dies, and with him the lynch pin of family cohesion. Terrible things are said and done to and by the remaining family members and their friends, lovers, spouses, and children, who move between cities, and sometimes continents. On the journey, though her characters, Attenberg observes the rise of new technology and old sexism, the ever-shifting culture zeitgeist, the art world, the work world, the self-help industry, the age of open sexual fluidity, the wealth divide, and the heritage of trauma with its legacy of secrets. Bonds of all kind-family, marriages, friendships, as well as economic, societal, and religious ones, are examined as they pertain to the characters, and ultimately to us. Yet the urge to reach out, even after years of mistrust and absence, somehow persists, though it shifts between the many characters and often emerges as love and a battered form of hope. Hang on for the ride: recommended. My thanks to NetGalley and Ecco.

This is the story of a family of four over a period of forty years. The patriarch, and the heart, of the family, Rudy, dies and leaves the mom and two girls rudderless. They spend the rest of their lives trying to find their true north. Weaving in and out of each others' lives. Always finding their way back to each other.

It covers many topics around motherhood, family, sisterhood, marriage, loneliness, friendship (especially female friendship) and more.

This book is mostly sad. It's real in so many ways and also it's a true portrayal of inherited trauma. The writing is beautiful and the characters are so real they jump off the page.

with gratitude to Ecco and netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

This slow burning female centered family drama runs steadily on Attenberg’s unadorned but solid prose that chugs the reader along in a very pleasant, road trip sort of way. The physical stakes are low, the emotional stakes high, and I was always invested enough to keep going, but it is definitely more character than plot driven. It is a quiet, true to life book, no big reveals and no full-on happy endings. But satisfying nevertheless. Big thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy.

"Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take." says a review of Jami Attenberg's latest fiction.

Ms. Attenberg is well known for her memoir and her craft book #1000 Words of Summer. She has written five works of fiction, each one better than the last. This book didn't grab me at first but I enjoy her work and stuck to it. I was not disappointed. The story of two sisters with a mother, crazy after the break-up with her husband, rang a sympathetic bell with me. My life isn't nearly as creative and 'exciting' as in this book but it was easy to believe all the ups and downs, twists and turns, this family and connecting people go through.

If you want a wild family ride that is also a history of the US and its various movements that people get caught up in, this book is for you.