Fabulous cast of characters made even richer by the omniscient narrator. It was especially enjoyable when the perspective changed within each chapter rather than a chapter from each perspective.

Time moved quickly and flawlessly throughout the book, yet still felt authentic. The Kuebler's prose mimicked the freeze and thaw of the small Vermont town along with the relationships of its residents.

The river with it's constant movement was a brilliant metaphor the continuous movement of life, even though on the surface it may seem to have frozen.

Liquid, fragile, perishable--aren't we all?

I will start off by saying please check trigger warnings! Instantly was drawn in by the cover. Multiple povs was a great add in! This book is complex and dramatic, in a good way, but it is not a simple book! I really enjoyed and thought it was beautifully written!

This book isn't going to be for everyone, but I highly recommend it for fans of literary fiction. Yes, the multiple POVs and frequent shifts in viewpoint take some getting used to, but the careful reader is rewarded. I appreciate how the author did not feel the need to dumb things down.

The elegant almost poetic quality to the prose ends up being quite lovely. Small town Vermont is captured so well in this narrative. Readers looking for a fast pace will need to look elsewhere, but readers who appreciate a contemplative narrative will find much to admire here.

I do think a "cast of characters" in the beginning would be helpful in keeping things straight.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance e-galley. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable by Carolyn Kuebler takes us to the quiet town of Glenville, Vermont. The story unfolds through the eyes of various characters, each offering a unique perspective on life in this close-knit community.

The heart of the tale lies in the arrival of the Calper family from New York. Willoughby, their son, unexpectedly falls for Honey Mitchell, a sheltered girl from a Christian beekeeping family. Their relationship becomes the focal point around which the entire narrative revolves.

Kuebler’s writing style initially caught me off guard, but as I delved deeper, I found myself drawn into the characters’ inner worlds. The way she lets us peek into their thoughts, fears, and desires creates an intricate web of emotions.

While I appreciated the multiple viewpoints, I did wish for more insight from Honey and Will. Their love story sets off a chain of events that forever changes Glenville.

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable is a thought-provoking read that immerses you in the complexities of small-town life. The characters linger in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced e-book.

Thank you to Melville House Publishing for granting me this arc through Netgalley!

This book was an interesting one. Told from the perspectives of many different characters and families, it took me a while to create a "family tree" of sorts so I could remember who was who and oh so that person is this persons neighbor and this person is that persons sister, etc.
The first few chapters reminded me of This is Us, if it were told more slowly. The exposition seemed to last about 60-70% of the book, and I found that the real plot didn't begin until it was too late.
While it was a long way to go to get to the main plot, I did find myself completely intrigues anytime I picked this book up.
The end felt quite rushed, especially because of how long the introductions were. It didn't feel very well paced, in my opinion.
However, the story did hook my completely. I was merely disappointed with how bland it all seemed to be until we got to the climax at around 75%
Overall, a good book! Not a favorite for me, but good!

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review on my blog. I found the story to be difficult to read and not enjoyable. Thank you for your consideration.

The story of a small ski resort town told through the eyes of multiple residents and centered on disappearance of on neighbor during a snowstorm one December. A few too any voices and difficult, frequent changes of narrator. Still enjoyable.

A beautiful concept, however, the execution wasn't solid. The writing style and formatting felt very sparse and dry compared to the major events and drama that was happening in the plot. The setting was executed very well and the characters were rich. I think the idea is great but this book could have used some tailoring.

Perhaps best for those readers who don’t prefer a traditional style of prose, punctuation and formatting.. I was interested in the concept but struggled to follow the speakers and the story due to the different style of presentation.

Thanks to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Some great moments, but the main characters of Will and Honey felt underdeveloped at times. I liked the secondary characters but this didn't dive as deeply into characters as I had hoped. Enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

It is really hard to enjoy this book. There are a few problems. The concept of lives within a small town affecting each other by circumstance invites a lot of possibility, but the potential is neutralized by the fact that very little distinction is made between these characters. There’s the Christian beekeeper family, their daughter and her friends, the visiting reporter and his son, the lonely lady at the post office, the family that owns the inn, and another lonely lady who falls off her ladder. It is easy to lose track of how they are related, whose child is whose, who knows each other and who doesn’t. They’re all monochromatic, hemmed in, and no one has anything of interest to say to another.

Kuebler’s style of close-third narration, with short paragraphs allowing characters to wander in their thoughts to which the reader is privy, only serves to blur them together further. Their voices are not distinct. Every thought is stray and timid, a toe in the water. People spend a lot of time wondering, processing their impressions of each other, and not doing. Everyone’s train of thought seems to run similarly, idleness with some resentment mixed in, and their vocabularies (both the kids’ and the adults’, the locals’ and the outsiders’) are identical.

The book is set against the worldwide crisis of colony collapse disorder, and what little action that occurs in the book seems to be intended to tie to some larger metaphor about the social dynamic of bees and their ability to create something larger than their parts. The narrative, however, does not rise to the occasion.

This was pretty heartbreaking, but in kind of a good way? Quick read, had some un-put-down-ability. There’s believable tension and some interesting bee information.

I was intrigued by the premise of the books, however it just wasn't for me.

The constant switch between perspectives was abrupt and confusing. I was never able to settle into the story as I was always trying to figure out whose perspective I was reading.

The writing is lovely, but the plot and character development slogged along too much for me to enjoy this read.

First of all, both the cover and title are AMAZING. I went to the post office earlier and chuckled. :-) Second, thanks to NetGalley and Melville House (long one of my favorite publishers; I used to go to their store in Brooklyn) for this ARC!

This was a wonderful debut. I loved the poetic style of this novel--single lines, dialogue used wonderfully without quotes--and some of the analogies being made between bees and churchgoers, without a heavy hand, as both of them congregate, the wistfulness that characterizes small towns like who leaves, who goes, who boomerangs back. The book also manages a large cast of characters in a smart and efficacious way, not an easy feat! Finally, there's some delightful humor that casts light and dark: when one character sets a table with lit candles--a kind of ritual for her--another asks what the occasion is and she replies, "darkness. Darkness is the occasion."

I think that this novel would have been more successful for me if it had narrowed down the characters and created deeper, more focused stories within the novel.

I am vetting books for inclusion in a summer reading list. This book didn’t suit that purpose. I found the shifting POVs and the lack of quotation marks confusing, but i also understand that this is a style choice. The characters were well-developed and it is this aspect of the work that may lead me to return to it at a later date. I did not finish the book, so my star review only reflects my initial impression. Thank you for granting my request for the egalley.

Absolutely perfectly encapsulates small town Vermont. I say that as someone who lived in Vermont for many years. It resonates it all--the beauty, the ugliness, the people, the land, the climate, daily life etc. I thought it was genius.
I did have to get used to the writing style. You have to work for it a little at the beginning and weave it together yourself. I ended up liking the style quite a bit, but it may not be for everyone. The layout lets you almost read it as poetry, though not abstract at all. If you've lived in Vermont, yearn for Vermont, want to escape Vermont, this book is for you. Oh, and the storyline? Some of it expected, some of it very unexpected. You'll see.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It was like spending a year back in Vermont.

The ARC is unreadable on Kindle. This is happening too frequently now and while I’m willing to deal with some formatting issues, I shouldn’t have to spend more time figuring out what it says than reading the story.

I tried to love this book. I kept putting it aside and coming back to it… thinking there was some reason I just couldn’t get into it. Ultimately after my third attempt, I decided to add it to my DNF pile. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this uncorrected proof. It just didn’t resonate with me in any way.

My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House for the opportunity to read this ARC of Carolyn Keebler’s Liquid, Fragile, Perishable.

This novel is probably going to show up on awards short lists and best of lists for 2024. Written in free indirect discourse, Kuebler immerses the reader in the small Vermont town of Glenville Vermont, and the lives of its inhabitants. Evoking Virginia Woolf’s ability in To the Lighthouse to move the reader through the interiority of a host of characters, Kuebler’s novel imagines the human ecology of the space, a human hive composed of work, mating, dying, coming and going, parents and offspring, delight and tragedy, fear and hope. There is no protagonist here, but Kuebler crafts a virtuosic glimpse into one slice of lives lived in America now, complete with extreme socioeconomic disparities, street drugs made, sold, and abused, families living together and all on separate paths, climate concerns, and more. I will read this novel again, and I will likely teach it. It’s golden and gorgeous and rich as the honey sold by one of the farming families in its narrative. Liquid, Fragile, Perishable will be one to watch for in Spring 2024!