This was a beautiful book. The author did such a good job of making the characters feel so real and the words dance around on the pages. I fell in love with the MC and I feel so much love for her. Thanks for writing such a beautiful book, it was such a pleasure to read.

A beautiful, captivating story told in such a unique fashion! I love how fresh this one felt. As someone who reads a lot, I'm always on the lookout for books that bring something new, and this one definitely achieved that for me! A great exploration of aging and self-realization. Highly recommend!

Another 5 star read for me! This year has been an excess of great novels. Loved this epistolary story about V and her life.

This book is ALL THE THINGS. I fell in love with Sybil, just like everyone will. I adore Harry and Theodore and even Mick. What a delightful story of how a life unfolds through letters. I love an epistolary title and this one is one of the best. I was particularly touched by the letter to Larry McMurtry and just wish it wasn't over so soon.

This is a brilliantly well written book, filled with a certain septuagenarian’s inner thoughts, musings and letters. Sybil Van Antwerp is old school, preferring to pen her thoughts to whomever she feels she needs to expound her thoughts, commentary, friendship, reminiscences. She is an artful writer and each letter was a small treasure. She is a master at a swiftly dying means of communication. How interesting to discover her life through her letters as each one reveals just a little more. Small in physical stature only, she is a giant in her epistolary work. “I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” Read her letters, discover her meaning, enjoy each gem.

While I was completely impressed by “The Correspondent” I was equally taken with the reviews of this book which have been extraordinary in their thoughtfulness. A million thanks to Crown and NetGalley for allowing me a copy of this wonderful book.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a beautifully crafted novel that celebrates the written word and its power to connect individuals across time and space with a beautifully written letter by Sybil.

This was a beautiful read and if you love epistolary novels, do not skip this one! A compelling and rewarding read!

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review in exchange for an honest review.

Written with empathy and wisdom, this debut epistolary novel was an easy five star read for me.

The protagonist, Sybil Van Antwerp, is a fiercely intelligent woman who is riddled with guilt and self-recrimination. She has now retired from a distinguished career in the law, is divorced, and is mother to two adult children. Her third child, Gilbert, died when he was only eight years old.

Many people today find the practice of letter writing to be antiquated. It is a practice whose popularity has all but waned. Sybil knows this, yet everyday she sits at her desk and pens letters. Over the years she has written thousands and thousands of missives to everyone from family and friends, to politicians, diplomats, and authors. She believes that “reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world.”

“People are just people. Famous or not.”

Sybil is an attractive septuagenarian who has two men vying for her attentions despite her age and diminutive stature. She says what she means, and tries to be genuine in all her communications. She is also losing her sight…

“Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal.”

The novel, written in the form of letters and emails, gives the reader an uncompromising glimpse into Sybil’s life, loves, regrets, guilt, and culpability. The tricky dynamics of family life, and the fact that Sybil was adopted as a child, play a significant role in the novel. Also, the complexities of nothing in life being black or white, but varying shades of grey.

Book lovers will rejoice in the fact that at the end of nearly every letter she writes, she tells her correspondent what she is reading and asks what they are reading.

In summation, “The Correspondent” was a novel written with skill and compassion. I’ll be eager to read more work by this talented author.

Loved this epistolary novel of a woman who loves to write letters - to anyone and everyone - celebrities, book sellers, friends and the like. This is an unusual novel that felt fresh and interesting. Well done!

Review link coming soon.

I love epistolary novels, and this one hit it out of the park! It beautifully told the story through Sibyl's correspondences with so many people and just made the characters all come to life through their letters! I loved this book so much!

This book is for anyone who has ever thought of themselves as a fraud… or for those who love books about older people… or expository texts… or books about mothers and children …. Or grief or loss

This is such a beautiful book that makes you think about your own parenting, parents and relationships.

Told exclusively through letters, Sybil Van Antwerp lets us know her usually through the correspondence people send to her, and occasionally through things she writes. She conducts most of her life through letters - to authors of books she is reading, to neighbors, to her children, to her best friends. Her middle child died when he was 8 years old, and she has never recovered. Now retired, she considers many things in her life.

Brava Virginia Evans on this utterly astounding debut epistolary novel! The character development is remarkable especially since we get to know each of these characters over the course of a decade through their correspondence alone. I will miss all of these interesting characters, most notably Sybil Van Antwerp and her persnickety ways. And Henry, I need to know that he will be okay. (Yes, I know he’s fictional but I can’t help myself.)

I will recommend this book to everyone. It’s beautifully written and an amazing love letter to correspondence and literature. I loved that the letters to and from friends always included what they were currently reading and an inquiry as to what the other was reading. A truly outstanding novel and I hope we get to read many more books by this author. All the stars in the sky to this magnificent book.

The Correspondent is a literal love letter to reading and writing, and a celebration of the messy beauty of life. This epistolary novel comprises the correspondence of Sybil Van Antwerp, a septuagenarian who sits down each morning to write her daily letters and emails. She writes to authors whose books she loved, to friends and family, to neighbors, to newspaper editors and strangers…And on many days, she adds a few paragraphs to one particular letter to an anonymous recipient, still unsent years after it was begun.

There’s something about the act of writing a letter that makes it seem less scary to be vulnerable. It’s such a deliberate process, from the time it takes to handwrite a letter to the time it takes for the recipient to receive it – it seems romantic and almost required to pour one’s heart out, to write profoundly and with honesty. It’s easier to write things, most of the time, than to say them – even given the permanence of the written word, or maybe because of it. Over the course of The Correspondent, we get the story of Sybil’s life – given to us by Sybil herself, and by the replies she receives to her letters. The result is a fully-formed portrait of a complex woman who, over the seven decades of her life, has had many accomplishments and many regrets that still crush her under the weight of grief and guilt. We learn that Sybil has a degenerative eye disease that will cause her to go blind, and that she effectively thinks her life is over. But we realize, along with Sybil, that her life and her relationships are still blooming and expanding.

The Correspondent is such a life-affirming book, so poignant and meaningful, and also very funny and clever. Sybil has an acerbic wit and strong opinions, which she isn’t afraid to share, but she’s gentle and kind beneath her prickly persona. And she’s not incapable of growth, either; she has a beautiful redemptive arc. Using only their own words, Virginia Evans really gets to the imperfect, gorgeous hearts of Sybil and the book’s other characters, creating so much empathy and love for all of them. The Correspondent was my favorite book of the year so far, and I’m going to be recommending it to everyone.

Loved this novel from beginning to end! This novel is so well written and the story is so touching. The story is told through letters and paints a picture of a thoroughly failed, imperfect and absolutely wonderful person. You will cry and laugh (sometimes at the same time) while reading this!

Did not read. Have way too many books on my shelf - need to cut back. Hoping to get to it in the future though.

When writing a letter, so much thought goes into what you put on the page. It's a lost art. We learn about Sybil's life through her letters. How each is different depending on who it is sent to. What the relationship is. Who Sybil is. Who she will be by the end of the book. Highly recommend.

"The Correspondent" by Virginia Evans is an epistolary novel that unfolds through a lifetime of letters written and received by its central character, Sybil Van Antwerp. Sybil is a retired, divorced septuagenarian and former legal clerk, who, despite her sometimes cantankerous and blunt personality, is a keen observer of human nature and a dedicated correspondent. As her vision begins to fail, threatening her carefully constructed life where letters often replace personal contact, Sybil is forced to confront unaddressed issues from her past, including a devastating loss and complicated relationships with her children and friends. Through her insightful, witty, and often poignant correspondence with various individuals—from her family and friends to literary icons like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry—the novel offers a nuanced portrait of a woman's journey toward self-awareness, forgiveness, and finding connection in the "winter season" of her life.

Thank you to Net Galley and Crown for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I haven't read a novel with a correspondence structure since the Guernesy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It was a wonderful way for to develop the story through mainly through a first person perspective of the main character Sybil Van Anterwerp as well as about others or the person she is responding too and learning about situations in her life. Sybil isn't much for phone calls or emails and she prefers correspondence. We learn that Sybil has lead a very full life but she's wondering how to move through midlife and later, also needing to deal with the regrets and missteps in her life. She is quite a reader and will send a letter off to famous authors such as Joan Didion, Larry McMurtry and Ann Patchett, to name a few. It was a beautiful unfolding of a life that everyone can relate to.

I dont often write reviews like this, but I am very torn about this book (which I received as a NetGalley ARC, but did not read until after it had released, where I read it in conjunction with the audiobook)

Whenever a book gets very high ratings and I don't really care for it, I have to think long and hard about what did not resonate for me. That is why I am sharing this review as a list of things that I really enjoyed and things that frustrated me.

Things I liked:
1. I really enjoy epistolary novels in general.
2. The audiobook, voiced by14 narrators, is excellent. The woman who voices Sybil, in particular, is excellent. This book got an entire extra star because of the quality of the audiobook.
3. Overall, the story was compelling.

Things I didn't like (contains spoilers)
1. It is understandable why Sybil writes letters, as this appears to be a way to significantly control her relationship to the outside world, but why do other people write to one another? In particular, why does Theodore tell of Sybil's death to Hattie via an international letter (and not, say, an email or a phone call?) Especially when the funeral is a mere 2 weeks from him writing to her.

2. What was the goal of Basam's storyline, other than just to make Sybil likeable? And Sybil is naturally... pretty unlikeable, especially in the beginning. Her letters with Basam seem to be to prove that she has a heart (which we find out through her character development throughout the story anyway). Basam is one of the few non-white characters in the book and the major point in their relationship is that she helps him find work, which feels ... icky.

3. So many important events in the story happen off-page, hindered by the letter writing format. Fiona and Sybil's relationship, a major difficulty for Sybil, for example, is largely fixed out of the context of the letters being sent. In fact, we hear very little FROM Fiona, despite their repaired relationship being a major plot in the 2nd half of the book.

4. The book is dated as starting in 2015 and ending around 2021, but there is no discussion of Covid. It could definitely be argued that Covid may have just not happened in this "world," but Sybil et al. seem to live very firmly in the "real world," where they talk about current news events (like Donald Trump's rise to power) and exchange actual book recommendations. There is a letter dated Feb. 2020 that discusses family visiting from around the world and as I was reading, I thought, "Here it comes. A letter from February 2020 is fairly ominous," but there is no mention of what would happen world-wide just a month later.

5. The storyline of Sybil dating the Texan is confusing and unnecessary, as it is clear from the very beginning she will build a life with Theodore and that she doesn't even really seem to enjoy the other man's company.

I loved this sweet epistolary novel! I comped it to Love and Safron by Kim Fay. Both are quiet stories (written in the same style) that focus on the connections we have with others and the beauty of friendships sustained through correspondence throughout the years. The Correspondent focuses on Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her 70s, who knows she is going blind. Sybil decides to tell very few people this fact, and over several years, through many letters, we see how her decisions (both past and present) affect those around her, as well as Sybil herself. I cannot recommend this book enough to readers who are looking for something quiet and profound. I will warn against triggers such as child death and an animal death.

This is far and away the best book I have read this year. Sybil is the most amazing character. You’ll love her, root for her, cringe with her and cry with her.

Read this book!