Give, a Novel

Thank you to BQB Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This debut novel showcases the complex relationships within one family, focusing on two sisters and their path from infancy through life. Joy, sadness, pain and growth - the story is poignant and beautifully written. The characters come to life and I found myself more invested than I thought, in wanting them to reach a place of resolution and contentment.

I loved this book, and highly recommend it!

This book is about two sisters who are caught between living with their biological father and his wife or their biological mother. They grow up with their dad and stepmother who is very close with them until they become teenagers. They spend summers with their mom who has not always been the best role model. When she eventually filed for custody the girls had to decide who they wanted to live with. The story is very well written and has believable characters. I definitely would recommend this book.

Thank you NetGallery and BQB publishing for the eARC in exchange of an honest review.

This is a debut novel by Erica C Witsell. And I must say I was amazed! The story is so poignant and beautifully written. It has joy, pain, grief, sadness and everything bonded together. It’s a family saga, a complex relationship within the family. It’s about two sisters, and their journey along their lives.

The characters have been beautifully sketched. As one progresses with the story, it feels as if the story comes to life. They are complex within themselves. There is so much going on.

To be honest, at some part I felt it was a bit dragging but I guess it was all worth it. The ending was so good! I was literally in tears.

I found myself much more invested than I had imagined myself to be. I wanted them characters to reach a solid satisfactory place.

I loved this book and would surely recommend!

I love family saga’s especially ones that change perspectives between characters or that follow one family through different time periods. This novel has both! We see the family, as they navigate through their relationships from the 1970’s up to the early 2000’s. There are two characters we see the most of, as they cope with tension and their complex relationships with one another as well as other members of their family. We also see what family means to the characters and how they deal with relatable issues every person faces as they grow older and trying to discover who they are.

I was instantly drawn into the book and Witsell’s characters, especially how she writes the females of the family. Witsell has a beautiful way of writing and creating complex characters. I’ve grown tired of the typical female characters in other books and appreciated Witsell giving us females who we could relate to but also be messy, imperfect humans! There were times when I cheered both for and against a character’s decisions, but it made them so much better when you realize, “people mess up and make mistakes, even the fictional ones!” There are also characters I tried to empathize with and I ended up loving to hate them. They reminded me of people from my own life at times, which made me want to try to understand them better.

Give is one of my new favorite books for this year!

I was really drawn to the story in this book. Laurel is the mother of two little girls and decides to leave them with their father and to move away. The father remarries to their babysitter and she becomes their mom. Laurel returns and thus begins the backward and forward pull from place to place. I loved how this book was told from multiple perspectives and that it goes forward into time. This is the first I have read from this author, but will not be the last.

Sisters Emma and Jessie spend every summer in Mendocino County. But their birth mother, Laurel, complicates things messily and in her own inimitable style, definitely not always to the good. Heart wrenching and honest, a very well written novel.

Enjoyed this book very much I would recommend this read to all. Thank you Erica C. Wilsell for this wonderful book.

I love a good family saga and this book is one of the best sagas that i have read this year. A very enjoyable book with so many different emotions. A very well written book and to think this is a debut book. I am not going to write what the story is about as i prefer one to read the book for themselves, but it do highly recommend.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my copy. This is my honest review, freely given.

R E V I E W ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

QOTD: What's your love language?

AOTD: Apparently mine is acts of service. 😏

When I finished this book I began to think about who the most giving person in the book was. But I couldn't pick just one person because as I began to think about the ways they gave, I realised they all gave so much in different ways...

Spanning over 29 years, Give takes us deep into the lives of Len, Laurel and their two daughters, Jessie and Emma. We are there for Len and Laurel when their marriage begins to break down. We are there for Jessie and Emma when they are torn between their parents, when their loyalties are questioned, when their love is judged.

What I loved about this book was the complexity and depth to which we knew each character. I loved that we saw them at their greatest moments and at their weakest and sometimes most desperate. I loved how each character showed their love in different ways but of course, if that wasn't the recipient's love language, it wasn't always recognised. This often led to misunderstandings and hurt feelings which we can all relate to. This is what led me to think about the title; Give, and how much each person gave of themselves because of love.

This is a beautifully slow and poignant look into the heartbreak that follows a divorce, the hurt that arises time and time again, the forgiveness that comes with it and the growth and light that comes through it all because one constant throughout life's uncertainty is that the sun will always rise.

Thank you @netgalley for this arc.

Give, by Erica C Witsell is an interesting and compelling novel. Starting in the 1970s, it didn't take long for me to become engrossed by this novel. Honestly, I truly became consumed by this book.

Laurel is struggling under the weight of motherhood and the reader immediately sees how selfish she is. Len, meanwhile, is immediately a likable and sympathetic character.

Honestly though, I find the book description to be deceptive. It doesn't convey how much of this story is about Jessie and Emma's childhood. The first part of the book is about Laurel and Len, and how they end up separated, with the girls not knowing Laurel for years. After that, the point of views transition into that of the girls as they go through adolescence followed by adulthood. The next part follows snippets through the years, as they grow up.

This book hit me on so many levels; as a mother, as a wife, and as a daughter.
This story heavily delves into motherhood, and the different ways people can show love.

It's as multi-layered as it gets, covering many years and many events. It includes divorce, step-parents, egg donorship, motherhood in general. It conveys the pain that stems from the rejection of a parent, the different things that truly make a mother, and heavily explores the meaning of biological parents in one's life. It covers alcoholism, polyamory, and more.

The author takes the reader through many different povs, including that of the children. This is one hell of a multi-layered read that to me, this would make an interesting book club read.

Give, A Novel is a terrific read. This Erica C Witsell book is a deep, thought-provoking family novel and coming of age story. It certainly doesn't fall easily into any one category. Personally, I consider it an amazing women's fiction read. But book stores list it as LGBT family fiction. Whatever it is, it's well worth a read.