A story that needs to be told, but you have to be in the right frame of mind to read this book. It is tragic and unsettling at times, but that is what great literature is made of.

Fantastic. Unique. Quotable. I would have covered this book extensively if my colleagues at Book Riot hadn't beat me to it.

The Comedown has a lot of pros to it - the writing was really done well, and I appreciate that. However, it ends up all over the place, going back and forth between characters and in time, and it just gets too complicated to fully enjoy the story.

I was not a fan of the disjointed storytelling. All of the different threads were really difficult to follow after a while. The end brought it together for me somewhat but...eh. This was a slog.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. I had heard a lot about this book, so I was excited to get started. The author has a beautiful writing style and the plot is very interesting.

The book started strong but the constant shifts of narrative and just all over the placeness of the book made this book a slog at points. It struggled to keep my attention and I often put it aside. While the author is following a grand tradition in the footsteps of Ulysses, I think it fell flat.

Frumkin's novel consists of connected short stories which tell the story of a family impacted by the drug world. I love the idea of getting more info about specific events through the lens of different characters, but each chapter just left me plain confused. It was hard for me to remember which character was which and how they were all related (although I suppose this could be more my fault than the author's.) Aside from the confusion (there were constant time jumps too!), I was also turned off by the repetitiveness of each story and the overabundance of details about side characters that didn't add anything to the story. This was just really disappointing.

Rebekah Frumkin can write! She writes bold depictions of people who make a mess of their lives, find complacency (or it is happiness?), look for answers, look for escape, search for connectedness to something. Situations are definitely not neat and tidy in this family epic of love, money, drugs, tragedy mental illness, with a little smattering of religion and the metaphysical. Time and characters skip back and forth. Sorting out the characters can initially be confusing (for example, there are a lot of Lelands in one family). But, come on, you're smart enough to figure it all out!
The dysfunctional family saga has been done many times. Here, it is taken on with a fresher perspective. It's almost tough to conclude exactly what it is that makes the author's writing so new. For one, she expertly writes dialogue that fleshes out a story that spans over 50 years of history. She creates characters that are credible, albeit unwholesome.
There were times that I felt that the scope of this novel was too broad. And then, I'd change my mind and decide that I wouldn't have it any other way. Frumkin depicts two families as they navigate through their lives. Having two families to sort through was obviously more complex, but worthwhile. Frumkin deftly weaves the stories of both families around each other. Readers will get it.
This isn't a 5 star book for me. I think it's because I wanted to like more characters. I really didn't like any of the characters all that much. I wasn't repulsed by any of them, either. Yes, they are unsavory, but I want to root for the underdog sometimes. I didn't rally behind these people as much as I felt I could have. There are some people I would not recommend this book to. Not because it is not well-written or interesting. I just know that it would not be their thing. They might give up on it...they would not approve of just how many of these characters use drugs. Regardless, there really should be more buzz about this book than I have heard this year. Many thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the chance to read an advanced review copy and share my opinions.

I wish I could tell you that I enjoyed it, but honestly this was a book that I had to give up on. I found myself unable to connect with the characters or at least care enough about them to want to continue reading. The plot seemed like it may have been interesting at first, but it seemed to keep veering and changing course. I may come back to it at another point in my life, but for now, it was better to walk away.

The writing is similar to Jonathan Franken's epic "Freedom" - the characters (and there are many of them!) are engaging and interesting, yet very flawed.
From drug-addled misogynists, to neurotic mothers, they all have their narratives highlighted in separate chapters. That doesn't make anything that happens much clearer - I often wondered what the point was, or if there was even supposed to be a point to this novel.

This book was so riveting, I simply couldn't put it down. If you re looking for a book that won't let you go, The Comedown is it!

There are many good parts to this book, and many unnecessary parts, adding up to just too many parts. What aims to be a sweeping epic ends up as a confusing mess as it gives equal weight to each character, whether main, secondary or walk-ons. By the second half of the book, I was overloaded and skipped every chapter that introduced yet another new character. Seems like the author refused to kill her darlings to the detriment of the overall arc of the story.

Thanks go to Net Galley and Henry Holt for the review copy. This debut tells me that Frumkin is an author to watch. This book is now available to the public.

The story begins with Leland, an addict with a suitcase, and Reggie, the dealer that hates him. There’s Melinda, the unhappy ex-wife, and a host of other characters, including Melinda’s daughter-in-law Jocelyn. The suitcase is the hook; everyone wants it, and so of course the reader must wonder what is in it and who has it now.

This novel grabbed me at the get-go, darkly funny and brutally frank. It struck me as angry fiction, and the energy behind it was fascinating. But ultimately, there are too many characters and too many social issues wrapped into this one story, and rather than making it complex and tight, it wanders in too many directions. There’s an overly lengthy narrative toward the end, and it’s followed by some regrettable dialogue. And there are too many characters named Leland. The story is an ambitious one, but this should probably have been more than one story, or perhaps a series. The result is a lack of focus.

I would love to see the author write something else using Melinda as the central character, and fewer guys named Leland.

The Comedown is a powerful and achingly beautiful debut. Leland, Reggie, and their families are inextricably intertwined after both are party to a drug deal gone wrong. We hear about the events from that night through the viewpoints of the members of the fractured families. Gritty yet compassionate, I can see fans of Sing, Unburied, Sing enjoying this.

This book’s ok.

“The Comedown” centers on a missing yellow suitcase full of cash and a drug deal that went wrong in Cleveland on May 8, 1973. Leland Bloom-Mittwoch, a drug addict, witnesses the killing of his dealer, Reggie Marshall, and absconds with the suitcase. The story then follows three generations of the families of the two men involved, one White (the Mittwochs) and one Black (the Marshalls), from the early 1970’s to 2009. Over the years, members of both families search for the yellow suitcase. The suitcase is a bit of a MacGuffin here, taking on a kind of mythic quality as each character doggedly pursues it for reasons of their own.

For me, this book is a compilation of character studies. For that reason it’s heavily populated, with various family members of the major players going in and out of the main narrative. Although the characters are all relevant and connected to one another, it was a struggle for me to stay interested here. This novel definitely explores race, class and addiction, but I don’t know…maybe I just wasn’t the right audience for the ensemble cast approach it uses. Once I began to like, hate, or empathize with someone it was off to another person, time, and place. For me this book just seemed too broad, too many bits and pieces.

The quality of the writing is decent, so Frumkin is definitely a writer to watch. This book will probably get good reviews from other people, so maybe my issues here are simply ones of personal preference.

3 stars.

Frumkin doesn't shy away from anything. Racism, poverty, addiction, mental illness and it all weaves into beautiful narration/insights.

Two families, interlaced yet divergent at the same time, set in 1970s Cleveland, Ohio with a twisty plot that hooks you from the start- Frumkin's THE COMEDOWN is a novel I won't soon forget. And look at the beautiful cover!

Thanks to NetGalley, Henry Holt and Co., and Rebekah Frumkin for the opportunity to read and review this book.

At its heart, this is a story of two families - one black and one white - told by different members of those families and their friends in chapters ranging from the 1970s to 2009. These families are forever linked by one night of violence in Cleveland.

This is less a story of figuring out what happens in the end and more of looking at these two family trees and see how events shape them. The author does a great job of really getting into each character's story. And the drugs, lots of drugs in this story!

It was a tad confusing with all the character switches but so interesting to see how the world views changed in dealing with so many issues (besides all those drugs!) - like race, poverty, weight, homosexuality, religion.

I was disappointed with this book. Each chapter tells part of one character's story at different points in the plot's timeline. It made it hard for me to get interested in the story or even get a handle on what was going on until well in the book. Yet, some of the characters had really interesting stories. I suppose the book characterizes the destructive effect of drugs, or the illegality of certain drugs, and lives up to its title where all of the characters experience some type of comedown. Overall, the main plot proved to be less interesting than some of the characters' individual stories.

I wanted to like this book SO MUCH. I love the premise and was excited to read it. Yet at about the 25% mark, I was forcing myself to read it. So I quit and will not leave a review.