Vera started it but she wouldn’t end it alone. She set them all free, she gave them the option and they choose each other, for that was the only option they thought they had, the only option that made sense to them. The option would come in fourteen days, Vera and her three best friends would take their lives just beyond the fencing but for now, they had two weeks to do the things they thought they needed to get done.

Through the years, these four teens have created a loving bond with each other, one where they felt comfortable being who they were. The conversations that they had with one other and the topics that they talked about are all over the place, it was comical and bizarre reading how these four friends conversed with one another. Vera was the character that jarred me the most. Her comments, attitude and flightiness made her unpredictable to me, I worried about her and I wondered how she would affect the group. The author slowly released information about Vera and l got to learn about her but she still remained an unpredictable character for me. It was almost too cozy for me sometimes as I read how well these friends got along but they seemed to be able to handle their relationship. While at home, each of these teens have different issues that they are addressing, some more serious than others. With only two weeks to get their affairs in order, time is quickly coming to an end while some activities are heating up. These friends really knew each other, I felt that they knew each other better than the individuals knew themselves. Maybe Vera was right when she said that everyone is messed up some way in their own lives. When I first started this novel, I wasn’t sure if this novel was one for me but the more that I read, the more I enjoyed it and the last half of the novel, really pulled me in.

I received a copy of this novel in exchange for a honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Sharon Solwitz, and Random House Publishing Group for providing me a copy of this novel.

3.5 stars. rounded up
1968. Bob Dylan on the transistor radio, reading Tao Te Ching, dropping acid, the convention protests in Chicago, discussing the Vietnam War around the dinner table. Solwitz sets the stage for these four misfit teenagers who are best friends and she does a good job of describing the place and time. The four make a suicide pact with the intention of giving themselves two weeks before carrying it out. Initially told from Kay’s perspective, you know from the get go that she, at least, survives. Her part of the narrative is filled with references to her memory and how she is seeing what happened then through the lens of how things played out.

You feel for these kids. Everyone can remember how as a teenager everything seems so final and important, that bad times will never get better. Everything is always so black and white at that age. But while I felt for them, I had a hard time getting into their heads. Am I that old? They seemed somehow obtuse, too dense to infiltrate. I felt more like I was watching them from above. Or watching a movie about them.

There is enough tension here to keep you engaged. You want to know, who, if any of them, might follow through on The Pact. And then, the ending. OMG. So sad and heart rendering.
My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Sharon Solwitz, and the publisher, Spiegel & Grau, for this opportunity.

The summer of 1968. Four best friends are faced with a forever uncertain future. Their tight-knit group is set to be infiltrated and disrupted by their impending adulthood. That is, unless they take their futures into their own hands and eradicate it. A suicide pact gives them just fourteen days to live and experience everything they want from their lives, before they end it on their own terms and how they want to - together.

This was such a strange and unsettling read. The pact is promised quite early on in the text and the entire novel is overshadowed by the knowledge of the doom that is awaiting the foursome, in the very near future. This lent an air of solemnity to this, even when the events depicted where of an opposite nature.

The four characters where given almost equal narrative time. This split-perspective ensured that each backstory and home-life was known to the reader, as well as the particulars concerning their drastic decision to end their young lives. The four were very different but their sadness was something shared, and therefore almost palpable. Grief became the fifth character, in this book.

The time period, this was set in, also had an impact on the events of the plot. These erratic times, and the disparate influences available to the youth, gave them no certainty in their lives, with which to anchor themselves. However, this was both a look at how a changing world effected the emerging generation, and a timeless yet startling insight into the coming-of-age psyche, marked forever by this uncertainty.

Whilst this was an entirely engaging novel, but it was the last quarter that really demanded my attention. The sheer amount of emotion, exhibited from this novel, was overwhelming. The suspense, that haunted the previous sections, had continued to grow until it was unleashed on both characters and reader, at the end. This liberal emotional outpouring did not make for easy reading but it certainly made for a captivating one.

Once, in Lourdes is a thought provoking, late 60's inspired tale about a group of friends trying to find themselves. Thinking that they have, through the unthinkable, it turns out they haven't. This group is turned upside down and inside out until they resemble something of themselves, and then they're asking is that enough?
Heart wrenching, these characters come to life, and are people you end up watching out for, even though they're breaking your heart all the while.
Uncomfortably real, pieces of Lourdes resonate in you as these characters face their lives which mirror our own. In the aftermath of death comes life, and that's ultimately what they must cling to. Well done.

A coming of age novel about four young people that takes place in a two week period before they enter their senior year in high school. They are two couples, but more importantly best friends who come from sadly dysfunctional families and whose very differences are what weld them together. One is an actual couple, the other not so much. Going any further into the well thought out plot would lead to spoilers. This is a thoughtful and contemplative novel that takes place in 1968, a time that was chaotic in itself. Thanks to Net Galley and Spiegeleisen & Grau for an ARC for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.
This book is about 4 best friends-Kay, CJ, Saint and Vera who all feel like their lives are spiraling downward as they are in their senior year of high school. They make a pact to commit suicide at the same time in two weeks. How would your decision making change if you knew that you only had two weeks to live? I was torn about this story in general. It's very well written and definitely gives you a feeling of being in that time and place-fictional Lourdes, Michigan on the Great Lakes in 1968. I just didn't like the characters-some of them all of the time and some of them some of the time. I definitely sympathized with all of them at one point or another. They will definitely stay with me however.

I can absolutely see why people would like this book. I was just not one of them. I can see why people would like this book. I was just not one of them. If I hadn't gotten this book from NetGalley, I most likely wouldn't have finished it. The writer is very eloquent, but I don't typically appreciate the overly prosy, stream of consciousness style of writing which this book abounded in. I want a story and didn't really get it here.

I found myself not really caring what happened to the characters besides a morbid curiosity to see who would fulfill the pact. The only thing I really enjoyed was the time period the book was set it, but even that felt a bit like an afterthought. This could have been set in any modern time period and it would have been the same.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was offered to me because I had read a similar book so I started reading this with no expectation. The plot is a little dark, it centers on a suicide pact, and the last days of the lives of those involved. The books summary also makes reference to the 1968 DNC and Chicago riots but those events are are hardly mentioned with the exception of one chapter which was disappointing.

Also, the writing is a little difficult to understand. I found myself reading and then rereading passages multiple times to figure out just what the author was trying to say. Don't get me wrong the writing is very eloquent and you can tell the author is a capable writer but after awhile I found the rereading tedious.

Overall, I'm glad I got to read the book but it definitely wouldn't be on top of my recommendation list.

None of these characters were remotely likeable and I ended up skipping to the end

“There are times in a person’s life when, even as an event is occurring, you know you might not ever understand it.”

This is another novel that left me with feeling ‘off’. What time is less understood, as you’re living it, than your teenage ones? In this novel, a pact is made by four high school friends upon a ledge above the sea at the local park in Lourdes, Michigan (which they call ‘The Haight”. It’s not your usual sort of pact, in fact is is a final one. Each swears to stand on the same ledge and jump into the ‘infinite’, putting an end to their miserable existence but in a strange ode to their tight friendship. As the days move on, the dynamics of their circle changes and nothing can ever go back to the way it was before.

Kate lives with her seemingly perfect step-sister, stepmother and father. Her mother is long gone, in a statement so big Kate wonders if it was meant as a blow her father could never recover from. As fate would have it, the wound has become Kate’s to bear. Her father has new love with Arlyn, “a woman for whom things would always turn out right.” Not like her dead mother, whom loved her more than anything and yet didn’t have a the natural grace and beauty her step-mother has, nor did she have Kate’s father’s attention. Among her friends, the only real connection and love she seems to have in this world, Kate has a semblance of a life. She spends her time abandoning classes meant to ‘improve her mind and body’ in order to be with her pals. Resentful of her father, shunned by his new ‘perfect’ family she carries her losses heavy in her heart and feels ” I was a bucket with a hole in it, never to be filled.” She feels trapped in her heavy body with no hope of love unlike her beautiful friend Vera. Despite her hand deformity, Vera exudes sexuality and a confidence Kate can only dream about. But what boils beneath the surface of her hard exterior leads her to find love with anyone, in order to erase the numbness she carries in every cell of her being. ” So often these days her body feels like a dead thing.” Vera can be sugary sweet and turn with venom without prompting. She carries a burning, shameful secret that will alter not just her future, but her friend’s lives too. Full of fight, never one to be cowed by her ‘imperfection’ she struggles with a volatile father, distant mother and confused brother. Her life to this point serves as the storm that brews within. Naturally boys and men are drawn to her, the relationship she has with her brother and father will make any reader uncomfortable. Beauty, a natural allure can be a curse to any young girl, particularly without a mother’s guidance and protection. Saint comes from his own troubled background. He is the quiet and calm in their noise, but his pain in abysmal. Originally from Detroit, he knows true poverty which dazzles the friends. With a brutal early childhood, he has vowed to be nothing like his violent father. He has a grace that settles over the circle, focused on mantras and religion. Confused about his sexuality, constantly the victim, he is drawn to Vera whose changing moods seems so different from his own. But has he tamed the animal in himself as much as he believes he has? CJ seems to think of his father as a reluctant Jew, angered that he doesn’t share stories of his internment during the holocaust, he hungers after all things holocaust and Nazi related. His little brother looks up to him, and his sexuality is a big question mark that makes him an immediate outcast. There is a confusing attraction he feels for Saint, which complicates the foursome even more. CJ and Kate turn to each other as Saint and Vera become closer, but CJ and Kate can’t help but feel left out still.

The story is an emotional tide, pulling you in with compassion, shoving you back to the shore with anger. The friends don’t talk about each other apart, it’s almost an unspoken rule, but after the pact the the ‘rules’ alter and soon they are pairing off. Everyone is flying off the edge, collapsing in their pain or shedding their skin to morph into someone new. After the next few weeks, no one will ever be the same and the friends may well see the end to the family they made in each-other.

The novel is set in the summer of 1968, which works wonders for the entire novel. I wasn’t alive yet but I felt like I was back in time. Saying ‘things were different then’ is a loose and obvious thing. It was a tumultuous time in American history and the friends are just as chaotic. I felt disturbed by Vera and yet knew girls like her. The fiery girl whom appears to be bursting with life and excitement, can’t fill themselves with enough attention and love and people imagine they live a blessed existence and yet there is a bottomless sadness in them, one that most of us would never want to touch. And poor Kate, I don’t care what sort of beauty a girl evolves into, everyone has a bit of Kate in them, the awkward stage just doesn’t leave everyone at the same speed. The ending had me spinning, and oddly, angry. I can’t wait to discuss it with other readers but to say more will ruin the entire story.

This was different to be sure. While it’s about teenagers, it’s better suited to adults.

Publication Date: May 30, 2017

Random House Publishing

Spiegel & Grau

It's 1968 in Lourdes, MI, a fictional town outside of Chicago. The tense and taut atmosphere of '68 is felt throughout. Protests, forceful police, dizzying amount of drugs, and free love. 4 high school kids, each with their own personal conflicts, find friendship and form a tight bond. They agree that their lives would be better if they weren't a part of this world and make a pact to jump from a bluff and end it...in 14 days.

When I read that this was a suicide pact, my attention was alerted. I wanted to know what these teenagers thought, what was their personal dilemma. The common thread seemed to be a dysfunctional home life that played out differently for each of them. Life is tough juggling school, home, identity, and social issues. How did any of us make it out of high school? The characters! The author probed each one so, as a reader, I felt like I knew each one. Vera especially had my interest and a part where she was high on acid. wow. My heart really went out to this girl. I felt deeply for each one as they battled their demons and came to their own conclusions about life.

There was so much tension as the novel came to an end. I was glued to my ipad. Loved it.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read Once, in Lourdes.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This book scratched the surface of too many things....teenage angst, not belonging, being fat, gay, confused sexually, different, misunderstood. Throw in the political unrest of the time, the Vietnam war. This group of 4, the misfits of their high school for the reasons above and then some. They make a pledge to kill themselves together and this story is the count down to the day of "The Pledge". Perhaps, because I am no longer a teenager, or in high school (thank God) I wasn't really able to connect with these characters. The story just took me along, often times I had to force myself to stay with it, and I really didn't care about much of it. I finished because I wanted to see if they fulfilled the pledge. I had my suspicions and unfortunately, I was correct at predicting the outcome. Solwitz isn't a bad writer, the book wasn't awful, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

What a heartbreaking novel, with an ending that made me almost miss by subway train transfer this morning! There is a lot to unpack with Once, In Lourdes. Centered around four best friends during the summer before their senior year of college in 1968, the story jumps around between the four friends as the reader struggles to learn why in two weeks after the novel begins, they will all commit suicide together.

While the plot is intriguing, albeit morbid, the highlight of the novel for me was Solwitz’s beautiful writing. Her language choices are unexpected, and she does a great job transporting the reader to that era. It also makes you care about the characters more, and urges you to move forward through the book to see what will become of them.

There are many upsetting plot points, so this is certainly not a breezy and fun read despite it’s colorful and fun cover. Although I didn’t absolutely fall in love with the novel, I don’t think it will be leaving me anytime soon.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
“Once in Lourdes” by Sharon Solwitz, takes place in a small town in 1968, where four inseparable teenagers vow to live this summer as if it is their last- which of course it is since the same four have also made a suicide pact. Vera, CJ, Saint and Kay spend the summer exploring themselves (and each other) with careless disregard and fearless abandon, knowing the consequences they suffer will be short-lived. However as the time grows nearer, fears and doubts begin to blossom and we are left questioning if they will indeed go through with their ill-fated pact.
This novel was just barely 3.5 stars. I almost did not finish it on several occasions, and really only remained remotely interested because I wanted to see who (if any) would follow through with the pact. The novel was too long in spots (CJ and Kay going to Chicago to join a peaceful protest with a bunch of hippies spoke to the era, sure, but did not provide much else by way of plot development) and although there were parts I enjoyed (the very dysfunctional backgrounds of all of the teenaged protagonists for example), they were not nearly interesting enough to keep me engaged.
The characters’ language was pretentious and unnecessarily complex. I am not one to say teenagers are stupid or uneducated (by any means) however they do not often sit around contemplating the philosophical theories of the Tao Te Ching while playing bridge. It was a little ridiculous and unrealistic. I felt like the author was going for a “Perks of Being a Wallflower” vibe (fascinating novel with a great movie adaptation), but simply fell flat with her whiny, verbose characters and their angst-ridden love affairs.
It is evident the author has some creative writing experience, as Ms. Solwitz seems skilled in character development and is able to keep the plot moving fluidly (it was not at all choppy, or broken, and seemed to follow a steady stream). The ending also added a little bit of surprise for a reader, which is always a good thing. I enjoyed Kay as a character more than the rest of them, as she had the honest self-wariness and insecurities that we expect to see from a teenaged protagonist. This novel was recommended to me because I read Emma Cline’s “The Girls”, and I do see some similarities between the two novels (including taking place during the same time period). Ms. Solwitz’s novel would definitely be for anyone who was a huge fan of “The Girls” (I was also only moderately impressed with this novel, too) or readers interested in the sixties as a time period. The novel is well written for sure, but I craved more drama and less vocabulary.

Thanks to NetGalley & Random House for ARC.

So, I was offered this book to read free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion.

What I liked…

I enjoyed the time period the book was set in, which was during Vietnam War era in summer of 1968. Having taken a class in my college studies about the Vietnam War and an overall enjoyment for this period in history, I was definitely intrigued to say the least.

I also enjoyed the close bond that the four friends (Vera, Kay, Saint and CJ) shared. Their friendship actually meant so much to these four that the book starts out with them making a pact to live for each other for two weeks and then subsequently jump off their local bluff in Lourdes, Michigan at the end. So, in essence friends until the end.

What I didn’t like?

The death aspect, for one, really was a bit too morbid for me. But I did have hopes that as the book unfolded we we get a better sense as to why the four friends would want to end their lives at such a crucial time for them.

While the author did her best to explain this, I still really didn’t relate to why the would ultimately make such a final choice here. Plus, the story leading up to it just fell flat for me.

I kept hoping for some big revelation and never really got it. Although there was a few shocking minor reveals, they all seemed a bit contrived to me, such as Vera and her brother Garth. Having a younger brother myself, this plot line just was creepy to me.

That said, I can’t give this one more than 3 stars at best in all honesty.

I'd love to ask the author Sharon Solwitz about the title of this novel. As far as I know - there is not a 'real' town called "Lourdes" in Michigan.....but what I find interesting-and perhaps symbolic & fitting to this story is that Madonna's daughter's name is 'Lourdes',
who is currently a student at the University of Michigan.

"Lourdes" is reference to the Virgin Mary.
"Lourdes, France"..... is the most visited pilgrimage shrine in the Christian world.

So, "Once, in Lourdes" .....it is!!! Four Teens in Lourdes, Michigan-in the summer of 1968. They were all in accelerated classes in school. Bright teenagers with troubles. They liked to play bridge in a park they called, "The Haight".

There is definitely no mistake about the time period in which this story takes place when we read an excerpt like this: ( family dinner table talk)
"With that mess in Vietnam, thank God they had girls, said my dad, and Arlyn
raised her pretty hands in despair. She hated Nixon, but he had the best chance of working it out. "Mom", Elise said. "I can't believe you said that!" Tomorrow she and friends were driving down to Chicago to campaign for Eugene McCarthy. Clean for Gene. I glanced at my father, who had fought in Korea and feared Communism more than death. An avoider of emotional conflict, he was busy eating."

Arlyn was Kay's step mother. Elise was Kay's step sister. Kay's birth mother committed suicide when she was 11 years old. Kay loves her dad, -sometimes feel sorry for him- and thinks he did a good job of replacing her mother by marrying Arlyn.
Kay's big wish, knowing it's vain and pathetic is to lose weight, wear a two piece bathing suit and walk down to the beach.

Vera had thick pale blond hair, and blue eyes. She was a gorgeous thin beauty with a malformed right hand. "Her three middle fingers were barely emergent with tiny fingernails and the palm was undersize". It was a birth defect. Vera didn't hide her hand ---she painted her tiny finger nails bright red.... even more than her physical beauty she exerted powerful magnetism and was fearless. Vera counted 17 different sex partners- yet she herself was not quite 17

Saint didn't arrive at the high school until the middle of the sophomore year. His silences contained depths of pain "felt and transmuted". He came from Detroit. He was the only one of the group who worked: he had too.

CJ is Jewish and craves stories about the holocaust.....as his father survived Auschwitz.

Kay, Vera, Saint, and CJ had reached a compromise beyond their individual desires. They laughed "ferociously". Their project was to do everything they could ever dream to do for the next two weeks. Then five days before the start of school of their last day of high school… which was also Vera's 17th birthday, they would climb the cyclone fence by the bluff, hold hands on the tippy-toe edge, ( scream some Profanity), and jump!

Kay had dropped 10 lbs in 10 days....
but the world was changing fast - and these kids were trying to take control of their world that was spinning out of control. It wasn't possible to live every dream they wished ---
Cigarettes, drugs, sexual activity, teen depression, anxiety, we are on the rise. Words to music were especially powerful and influencing- outside forces were strong forces!
....kids were looking for meaning - for purpose. So much confusion being a teenager. Who to blame?

It's not easy to guess the ending of this novel. It could have gone many ways.

Challenging topic - Sharon Solwitz gives insights into her characters psyches...
It's just not easy to understand- for any reason - why a group of teens would choose to want to end their lives together.

Written with tender compassion-- and feels very authentic!

Thank You Netgalley, Random House Publishing, and Sharon Solwitz

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC.

Very complex book. The setting is the 1960's in a tiny town called Lourdes, where four friends are trying to figure out how they fit into the world. It is a world of draft cards, drugs, free sex, revolt against the establishment and typical teenage angst.

The four friends make a pact to literally jump of a cliff together in a few weeks and you learn why they each feel they need to do this over the next few weeks. The ending is unexpected, but "right"( in terms of plot).

Woah. Once, in Lourdes is so not my style. I couldn't get past Vera climbing in bed with her brother. No way would I recommend this to kids.