Unfortunately, because of the odd grammar and spelling, I had to abandon this book. I enjoy the stories of health care workers and how they put their lives on the line for the health and welfare of others, and I was excited to dive into this book, but I was a little confused from the beginning. And I was not really able to follow a story line. Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me a try at this ARC.

2.0. Did not finish the book. Found the subject uninteresting and the language off putting. I rarely do not finish a book, but I did not think that completing the story was a good use of my time. Unfortunate.

Vivid and alive. The density of the paragraphs mimics the feeling of traumatic overwhelm. Thomas really takes us into the experience, and the dialogue too, keeps it alive - you really hear the characters and where they are coming from. Beautiful writing on difficult stuff. Thanks for the ARC!

The stream of consciousness writing and run-on sentences make this difficult to track, but effectively speak to intergenerational trauma and systemic harms of our society.

It was a good book but it was not for me. The language and writing style made it difficult for me to read. The long paragraphs made it more like a journal versus a novel

I really wanted to like this book and get more into it, but the short synopsis is the writing doesn’t work for me. It reads, at least to me, like one long sentence that starts in one place and ends in another without anything to make it cohesive. There are clearly important points about race, poverty, and more, but I found it hard to follow and bizarre. If the style works for you, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First, I want to thank NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this ARC. I needed a good book for a trip I was taking, and when I read the summary for this, I felt like it would be a good vacation read for all the different forms of transit I was taking. This was my first time reading the work of Joseph Earl Thomas; I had heard about Sink, but hadn't had the chance to read it yet.

Let's get to the nitty gritty: I give this a 3.5/5 (rounding up to 4), mainly driven by the fact that the story continued to pull me in every time I thought about taking a break. Thomas' writing style is unique and proselike. I sometimes found it hard to not get lost in the lines, but I ultimately felt that it gave the book an intimate feeling of being told a story in real time. Sometimes it's linear, sometimes you get lost on a tangent; but no matter what, it's real. I think my biggest difficulty was trying to keep all the of the side characters and their storylines straight while remembering where we were in the main plot. Some of the asides amplified the shock factor, peppering in salacious and or traumatic tidbits in otherwise standard paragraphs. I loved the continuous thread of Otis Spunkmeyer muffins; I think it perfect captured the idea that some of the most impactful joys in life can be the simplest (in this case, just your standard vending machine type muffin), and those same joys will be present at the most mundane and most traumatic moments in our lives. The ending was one that I had to re-read a couple of times to truly take in everything that was happening, but I felt that it wrapped the story up aptly.

In general, I think this should definitely be on your summer TBR list, and I look forward to more people becoming familiar with Joseph Earl Thomas' work. I'll be checking out Sink as soon as my library lets me!

Beautiful prose set in my home city. The main characters struggle is so unique but the themes of what we sacrifice for our families is somewhat universal. I loved the timeline jumps

A really entertaining read I enjoyed from first to last page.Characters that come alive would be perfect on tv.#netgalley #grandcentral.

This is a rollicking fun read with characters that were all larger than life, I really expect to see this as a movie someday, and would gladly watch it.