A very enjoyable book from a uniquely male perspective about a life that highlights how surprising a seemingly ordinary life can be.
Casper Gray thinks he is an average guy, until a series of unfortunate events forces him to look at himself in a different light.  He, along with everyone else in his life, believes that he has no hidden depths, when in actual fact, he is a man of great fortitude.  I like Caspar, because he could be any male I know.  He is funny, smart, loves his dog and has a complicated relationship with self-analysis.
Well written, humorous and insightful.  A very enjoyable and easy 3 1/2 star read.

I found this book pretty forgettable and I just couldn't empathize with the main character, he seemed so weak.

Just Another Week in Suburbia takes a look at a marriage that is not working and one mans insecurity.

Casper Gray is stating to question everything about his life and what I liked about this book is that it looks at this from a male POV. Usually it's the women who suspect their husbands and fall into the spiral of paranoia and self doubt.

This book is good, it isn't a happy read and Casper isn't a happy man. but it does have it's humour too.

With his wife and his dog Wallace causing problems for him. we look at Casper, his life and what happens to people when things go drastically wrong

This was a unique book read for me, I have read many books of the genre "chick lit". I felt as if this was of the same but for men. It was interesting and kept me hanging til the end but felt it was predictable at the same time. I wasn't surprised or intrigued by the ending at all. It would be nice if they had a genre called "dude lit" of stories like this. Overall I probably wouldn't reccomend.

Every day is the same in suburbia. Until, of course, it’s not. When Casper Gray discover his wife is keeping secrets from him, his world starts to unravel, and so does his mind. Just Another Week In Suburbia, Les Zig’s debut novel, (he’s also written a memoir, Overload, had screenplays optioned and is a prolific short story writer) is a perceptive and accurate portrayal of relationships and routine, insecurity and infidelity, life and love. Casper finds himself in a rut – nothing’s wrong with his life with Jane and his job as a teacher, but like us all, things could be better. Life and its participants are flawed after all. Taking place over just one week the easy prose and observant dialogue reflect the mundane, whilst the plot twists and the subsequent tangles that Casper finds himself in remind us that anything can happen. Characters are believable and likeable, even with their flaws, and the description of chores, work, exercise, hobbies, evenings on the sofa and nights in the pub very relatable. It’s not a groundbreaking novel, but then suburbia isn’t a groundbreaking topic. It’s every day life, and all the more powerful for it. Available now on Pantera Press.

A lot can happen in a week, and a lot happened in a week in this book! Was a good dissection of married life in the burbs of Australia, kept me interested, but also glad that a week in my life doesn't look like that.

I couldn't put this one down. A complex story told simply.  The characters have stayed with me weeks after finishing the book.

Lis Zig has managed to make me like a modern story. Just Another Week in Suburbia is the story of a marriage in crisis. A very slowly imploding marriage.

Casper is a frustrating character. You want to like him, but you read has he makes dumb choices and mistakes. You want the best for him.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I really enjoyed reading this book, although it was a little slow and I had to skip some pages. This book tells the story Of Casper Gray a married school teacher who is very unsure of him self and his thoughts. He spends a great deal of time caring about other people opinion of him. He seems to be scary and thinks of himself less than everybody else. He is married to a lady named Jane who makes a huge mistake and along with another event has Casper question his very existence. I often found myself yelling "stand up for yourself" and cheering when he finally did. The ending left me wanting more. I definitely would recommend this book.

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I really enjoyed this book! Honestly, it took me a little while to get into this book, even after Casper discovered the condom in his wife's handbag. I just couldn't tell the path where this book was going until further on, when events at the school picked up. From that point onward I was hooked. I wanted to see how Casper could handle his life going crazy. In some ways, it feels like we've all been there, one thing after another goes wrong, This book is relatable, and keeps you hanging on!

I personally love delving into the personal lives of others, other fictional people that is. This novel gives you just that. A very close look into a marriage that may not be as strong as Casper once thought it was. We see the effect of doubt, suspicion and insecurity and the inability to act.

Poor Casper. He goes to bed and all is well, but when as of the next morning, all is not well. Why? He sees a condom in his wife's purse. So begins the week from Hell for Casper. He is questioning many things in his life. This is a book that to me could happen. Not the exact scenarios but something transpiring that makes you question all that you thought you know. I recommend that  you get this book and take the journey with Casper. You will not regret it. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book in return for my honest review.

Overall, this book had too much sexual content for me to enjoy it. I thought the premise was interesting enough -- really just another week in a normal-ish household, but could have done way without all the sex, so that lost a star for me.

This book is a slow burn about how well you truly know the people in your life, the complacency that can come with modern living, and the power of perspective. 

Overall, I did enjoy it. I would say the first half of the book was better than the second. It didn't feel like it dragged along quite as much, and I was really interested to see where the story went. 

However, Casper was an extremely unattractive character to me and seemed like he definitely had the potential to become a redpiller. Not necessarily that he was in the book, just that it seemed like he had the capacity to go that route. He wasn't interesting but that was part of the story. 

I did appreciate the fact that he eventually sees his life (in general and in the context of suburban living) in a much more positive, open-minded light. The power of perspective can't be overstated, so I liked the message of the book. 

The characters just didn't do it for me.

I found this book intriguing describing the way Casper feels about his life, that is how a lot of people feel but would never tell anyone.

I really enjoyed the structure to this novel and the sense of tension and atmosphere as the week progressed. However, I felt the fall out of the main plot incident didn't really ring true for me in term of the protagonists character... it tried a little too hard to be thematically coherent, but a good read nonetheless.

The first issue I had with the copy of the book I had didn't lower the rating. The formatting of the ebook was so atrocious that I had issues at first reading it. The paragraph would break suddenly in the middle of a sentence, there were random "m"s between paragraphs randomly, it was a mess. It might have changed how I read the book, but I tried to not let it influence my rating since that is technical.

The book felt distant and the dialogue was pretty terrible. The book felt like it was a watered down version of The Average American Male (or The Average American Marriage). The book never went far enough. I started to think the book was turning itself around when it came to the alcohol near the end, but even that fell short. The big twist, which to be fair was literally the entire plot screaming, was so weak. I called the ending from the very beginning. It was never a mystery. There was never any real need to keep reading. 

I do have to give props to a few scenes that were very well done. There is a scene where Casper is pretty much spying on his neighbor and is masturbating (pretty much the most unexpected scene in the entire book and completely out of character for Casper). I felt like a creep with him. It is told in the first person so it felt like I was watching her. If the rest of the book could have come even close to that scene for emotion or integrating the reading into the character more, then I would have rated it higher even if I didn't enjoy it. 

There was very little that actually happened. It was just a lot of thoughts that were super repetitive, which fits the story line pretty decently. The repetition got on my nerves since it was broken up with passages that were completely out of character for Casper. It just fell flat. I wanted to like it. This is the sort of plot and description that really captures me and usually I can't put the book down. This one just didn't do it for me. 

***I did not want to lower the score on Amazon, so I did not post this review there. The views are already mixed and since this is a first book, I felt bad about lowering the score below the 3.5 it already had.***

‘Maybe you never really know somebody.’

Casper Gray and his wife Jane live out in the suburbs.  Casper teaches English at the local high school, and he and his wife Jane have been trying to have a baby for seven years.  They have a cute dog named Wallace, who causes Casper some grief with one of the neighbours.  Sure, teaching has its rewards and pitfalls, but Casper counts himself a happily married man about to celebrate a wedding anniversary.

And then, he accidently knocks Jane’s handbag, and while cleaning up the spillage is gobsmacked to discover:

‘A condom sits there – Four Seasons, glow in the dark.  The corner of the wrapper is dog-eared.  Maybe it’s been battered inside Jane’s bag, or maybe somebody started to tear it open.’

So begins one of the most challenging weeks of Casper Gray’s life.  He agonises over this discovery.  Is Jane having an affair?  How can he discuss this with her?  And, while Casper agonises and obsesses, other aspects of his world start to fall to pieces.  Problems arise at school, and with Vic (the neighbour who so objects to Wallace).  Can Casper find a way to deal with these issues?  And what about Beth?  She’s his closest friend at school, and she has some relationship problems of her own.

As I read this novel, I was offering Casper all kinds of sage advice.  Although Casper didn’t listen (it’s one of the most common faults of characters in novels, they rarely listen to the reader), I hoped that he would ‘man up’ and take responsibility for what he needed to do. 

 How do we deal with insecurity, love and trust?  What do we do when we think that we know someone completely, and then find there’s another dimension to that person’s life?  What would Casper do?  Would he talk to Jane?  Would he deal with Vic?  Would he get caught up in Beth’s problems?  Would he deal with the issues at school?  So many questions to cover in one week: how would Mr Zig pull this all together in his debut novel?  You’ll need to read it for yourself to find out. 

I can say that I enjoyed the novel, and I’ll certainly be looking out for more work by Mr Zig.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Pantera Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

A quick easy read about a week in Casper's life which sees him questioning his marriage and having other problems in his life. Casper needs to be strong to get through his problems and he needs answers to his doubts about his marriage.