This is a book to get lost in, to immerse yourself in the setting, to be intimately involved with the characters and live their lives as if they are your own -
Mary Beth Keane captures the language and feelings of her characters so authentically it is as if they are real people and she is the narrator of current events happening in your neighborhood.
It is a story of bitter pain & loneliness and of family, community & forgiveness.
The narrative follows two police officers working in the same precinct and their families, who live across the street from each other for about 10 years.
A terrible event happens that changes everyone, yet the ending has hope - some things which are broken can be fixed, but never heal the same way.
Excellent, emotional writing without sentimentality. Highly reccommended.
This is the first book I've read by this author and I am looking forward to reading her first novel, "The Walking People".

Ask Again, Yes has been slowly gaining steam over on #bookstagram and I’m thrilled to say it’s worth the hype (5 stars for me)! It’s a character-driven novel that I couldn’t put down…a type of book I tend to love. But, these are always the hardest to review because they’re just stories about people living their lives (i.e. nothing fancy). But, these particular people struck a chord with me. The first 10% is a little slow, but I started flying through it after that. It’s a coming of age story and an unconventional love story. It’s about mental illness, addiction, and how these characters cope during the aftermath of a horrible tragedy. The beginning reminded me a bit of My Sunshine Away (the neighborhood kids hijinks), while overall, it reminded me of The Female Persuasion (my review) without the feminism angle. I predict you’ll be seeing this one on multiple Best Books of 2019 lists come December…including mine!

This book was absolutely amazing! I loved the story, it has multiple viewpoints and jumps back and forth from past to present and flowed well into each other. It is definitely a star crossed lover type story that had you rooting for love to conquer all, but it also had many of the major challenges of today. It focuses on mental illness and how little some of us understand and the dangers of no treatment/incorrect treatment. It also focuses on alcoholism and the personal battle and the effect on the family. You never know a person or a family’s challenges or the need for help and understanding. This one hit home for me and it the best heartfelt book I have ever read!

Oh my...this book gave me all the feelings. Such a raw, beautiful story written in exquisite style that kept me glued to its pages. I need more books like this one in my life. So real, believable, full of emotions...simply LIFE written down on paper. There was nothing forced about this story, nothing written to shock the reader, just a flow of raw emotions, story of two families touched by a tragedy which maybe could have be prevented, or not...but that is IT exactly, life cannot be predicted, and one decision or act can make waves and ripples in people’s lives that will change everything forever.

This book is a must read for everyone, and I dare for anyone to say that this book made them feel nothing. For me this book falls into the category of “The Heart’s Invisible Furies” by John Boyne, it is just unbelievably captivating, heartbreaking, real, raw, sad but also so wonderful. I just loved everything about this book. And I mean EVERYTHING!!!!

Thank you Netgalley, Scribner Publishing, and the author, oh so talented Mary Beth Keane for giving me an opportunity to read this beautiful story in exchange for my honest opinion.

My Thoughts: Ask Again, Yes is the beautifully written story of neighbors, not particularly close despite the fact that both men are NYPD cops. They maintain a civil relationship, but the wives are not spending mornings over coffee and their husbands aren’t playing poker and drinking beers together. However, the youngest daughter of the Gleesons and the only son of the Stanhopes are best friends from a very young age. Just as their friendship begins to blossom into something more, a horrible tragedy divides the neighbors and has the Stanhopes fleeing.

“The quiet of the house when she kept to her room was not the peaceful silence of a library, or anywhere near as tranquil. It was, Peter imagined, more like the held-breath interlude between when a button gets pushed and the bomb either detonates or is defused. He could feel his own heartbeat at those times. He could track his blood as it looped in his veins.”

The two friends, Kate and Peter, become the focus of Ask Again, Yes in the 40 year span of this character driven novel. I liked their story, and the journey of their lives very much. I also enjoyed some of the side stories with the other characters in the book, but after a while I felt like it began to become too cliched. It seemed like every possible crisis that can affect relationships happened in Ask Again, Yes. The story would have been just as compelling and a lot cleaner without so many different messes to be resolved. None the less, I liked much more than I didn’t about Keane’s novel and think it will be a winner for anyone who enjoys character driven stories.

Note: I received a copy of this book from Scribner (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book. This story begins in the 70’s to present and is about two families that live next door to each other. There is much animosity from the two wives and things ensue that will change the course of their lives and their children’s lives. This is one of the best books I have read this year. I did not want to put this down. This writing was simple but beautiful. This family drama has all the right ingredients. Once thing, about these types of books is you mostly find unlikeable characters, in this one you have so many redeeming qualities as they each go through their own personal hell.

I loved this one (obviously), but I particularly want to talk about the pacing. It can’t be easy to write a story that spans multiple decades like this one, but Keane pulls it off perfectly. One of my favorite sections of the entire novel is towards the middle when she uses a series of vignettes to quickly cover an extended period of time. She manages to show exactly how a lot of relationships are in real life when distance or other factors get in the way. You pop in and out of a person’s life (maybe you see them twice this year, then not again for 3 more years), but you fill in the gaps to paint a complete (if not always entirely accurate) picture. It felt so real to have this happen to the characters in question, and then when you pick back up with a more real-time narrative, you’re approaching it from the exact same footing they are—as sort of but not really strangers whom you have to get to know again at that point in their lives.

4.5 stars! This was a beautifully written story about the impact one horrific act had on two separate families. The character development was so wonderfully done and left you feeling empathetic about some horrible downfalls that they had. It was a story of trials and turmoils of life and also forgiveness.

I want to thank Netgalley and Mary Beth Keane for giving me an ARC for my honest review of this book.
I f you like family drama fiction , you will like this story. It delves deeply into the characters personal lives and relationships with each other. There is betrayal and there are deep wounds. The struggle will be how will they deal with these issues. Will they overcome them? It was an emotional story that was touching as well. I rated it 4 stars!

3 stars for the first 200 pages. Guys, this just fell apart for me. It was painful to have to read the last 100 pages not because it was so sad or anything it's like my brain resisted it because it didn't register that this last part was connected to the first wonderful part.
I started this greedily finding it a great literary-ish story to really sink into. We learn about two different families who live close by. The Stanhopes and the Gleeson's. One family is more dysfunctional than the other and Anne Stanhope has some issues which lead to an unfortunately really dumb incident and well, their kids like each other but after the incident the son, Peter Stanhope has to go.
Then we have the fall out, which is really disjointed to me and also lagging. It was never going to be a page turner kind of story for me but man did just peter out (no pun intended, or maybe it was intended). I did like how it felt sort of realistic in a way, as if it could have been a true story because it didn't feel crafted, it felt anticlimactic which is how life often is.
I dunno. Maybe I'm being harsh but it just was really hard to finish.

There’s a category of American literature – let’s call it quotidian smooth – that, at its best, offers a kind of soaring take on everyday life, laying a wise balm over the more or less ordinary events that occur in middle class homes, while penetrating the soft but rich psychology of its characters. One of the best of these, in recent years, was Matthew Thomas’s We Are Not Ourselves which explored a family history across decades, through the particular lens of dementia, but which raised wider issues too – heredity, housing, loyalty and the daily of business of wedded life. Not to mention the US favourite, redemption.

Mary Beth Keane’s third novel joins these ranks. It too takes the long view, assessing the vicissitudes of two families living in neighbouring houses in Gillam, a suburb twenty miles north of New York City. The Gleesons and the Stanhopes know each other before settling in Gillam. Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope met as rookie copies in the NYPD. Yet they are not entirely friends. Upright Frances holds back a little from his less centred colleague. Their wives differ too. Lena, mother to Francis’s three daughters, offers friendship to Anne Stanhope but is rebuffed. Anne is prickly, mercurial, shading, over time, into violence and unpredictability. Meanwhile Francis’s youngest child, Kate, and Anne’s son Peter have formed an undying friendship which will slide frictionlessly into star-crossed love.

Keane’s quiet capability embraces a three-generational plot, multiple character perspectives and some complicated topics, notably mental health and addiction. Her empathy extends easily to Anne who, after reaching a shattering crisis, is incarcerated in a secure facility. Anne’s struggle to regain control of herself and a degree of normalcy in her interactions with her family are one facet of the story. Another is Kate’s response to this challenge and how it feeds into to the amelioration of another threat. Meanwhile Francis and Lena are tackling major threats to their own union.

It’s a broad yet domestic canvas. The story springs from Anne’s – or Keane’s – belief that ‘the beginning of one’s life mattered the most, that life was top-heavy that way’.

Gentle but affecting, Keane’s novel delivers a mature version of a narrative likely to appeal widely. Love will weather vicissitudes. It doesn’t get more conventional, nor special, than that.

A beautifully written family drama. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Such a beautiful read! I learned so much about forgiveness and family, and the power of love. The relationships were beautiful and I loved how the story approached mental health and made it independent from someone’s character. A great summer choice!

I can't express how much I loved this book! It was a book that drew me in from the very first page. There has been quite a bit of hype surrounding this book and it fully deserves it. The story itself is just fascinating and unique. I have never read this author before and I absolutely loved her writing style. It flows so effortlessly that you really don't want it to come to an end.

I love how the story started in 1973 with the two rookie police officers Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope meeting. We get a sneak peek at their personalities as they start their career off together with perhaps a different outlook at life. They end up moving right next door to each other in a quaint little suburb called Gillam, basically living the American dream. Except they are not exactly what I would call best buddies, not even friends, more like acquaintances despite working together as partners. The American dream quickly turns into everyone's worst nightmare. A tragic event rips these two families apart. I am going to refrain from saying what the "tragic event" was because it shocked me to the core and I want you to be able to experience that also. Sadly their children Peter and Kate who were thick as thieves were torn apart with no chance to even say goodbye.

As the years progress I loved being allowed into both Peter and Kate's lives. We are able to see how the tragedy impacted both of their lives. It shaped how they progressed in their lives and the challenges they had to face. These two innocent souls that had nothing to do with the tragic event yearned to know what happened to each other.

Wow this was such a moving and interesting story. The characters were so well developed and I found myself obsessed with how Peter and Kate were doing and how their life would progress. I was lucky enough to be able to read this as a group read with some fellow Traveling Sisters, if you get a chance pop over and check out their thoughts.

This was a definite win for the group as we all seemed to enjoy this book a lot. My only drawback was I was hoping for a bit more closure at the end. I just personally thought it wrapped up a bit too perfect and easy. Whereas I feel in real life this may have been a bit more challenging to have this ending. With that said, I still loved it!

I think everyone should read this book if they have the chance. It is just that good. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I have stopped and started this review so many times over the last week! It’s hard to review a book I loved, to articulate what gives it that something that just resonates - much harder than reviewing one I disliked. I love a dysfunctional family drama, one that spans decades, one that has multiple narrators, and a gut punch ending. Ask Again, Yes checks all of these boxes and that 'something more' quality which keeps a book on my mind long after I've finished turning the pages.
I think that what I found unique was the author's ability to take a narrative full of high drama (secret love, a gruesome shooting, a character sent to an asylum and more) and give it a nuanced, introspective tone that was so compelling. Normally I do not gravitate towards books that are heavy on characters inner lives and short on dialogue, but not in this case. It is such a quietly told, yet riveting story. Keane writes evocatively of each character's stage in life and I completely understood and empathized with their choices and emotions - especially Kate as she transforms from the stubborn little girl to the headstrong young woman, and eventually, the strong willed mother trying to keep her family together. And that's the crux of this story, that from one vantage point in your life you can see things in a completely different way than another: childhood versus adulthood, being a child versus being a parent, witnessing depression versus being caught in it's cross hairs. Every single character in this book can be considered villainous and also heroic at various points in the story. It's beautifully told, how none of us can be entirely one or the other, how humanity is fallible and also worthy of love.
"...their worry for Peter, the person they each loved most, bound them, put them in the same boat together, and they could either row hard as one or else drift while he drowned nearby."
The title of this book is such perfection and I would so love to share the titular quote, but it would give too much away and I think it's so impactful after coming all this way with these characters. I will think on it often, how I wouldn't change a thing and think 'YES' to all the messiness that life throws our way.
Many, many thanks to Scribner books and Netgalley for a complimentary advance copy for review!

I really loved the first half of this book - if I could rate half a book it would be 5 stars for sure. However, after the “violent event” (no spoilers), I felt the story dragged on. Overall, I would give it 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4 because of the exceptional first half. I really liked following the families through almost an entire lifetime, and the ups and downs that goes along with it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

When two rookie police officers buy homes next door to each other they have no way of knowing how the lives of their families will become entwined over the years through both tragedy and love. This was a fantastic book and one I know I will be rereading.

This book was beautiful and heart-wrenching, following the story of a family impacted by a violent act over the course of multiple decades. This book did not fit into multiple genres, but instead was a family drama, a coming-of-age-story, and a love story all at once. More than that, it was the story of how one act or one issue can change the entire lives of individuals, even those who were not directly part of this.

For me, what was especially important about this book was how much family was shown to be impacted by mental illness, especially through the role of Peter's mother. As someone who has had a mother like his that made me stand out, being able to find someone I could relate to meant so much to me, especially as I have had a hard time seeing this in fiction before. The fact the writer did not demonize Peter's mother was also crucial to my feelings on this novel. With these facts and more, I was left with a feeling that I have not had with a book in a long time.

ARC provided by Netgalley and Scribner in exchange for an honest review

This book was excellent. A family drama over two generations, with lots of dimensions and fully formed, and flawed, characters. I couldn't put it down;.I truly felt like I knew these families and was following them throughout their lives. One of my favorite books of the year so far.

"Ask Again, Yes" by Mary Beth Keane, Scribner, 400 pages, May 28, 2019.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope meet as unmarried rookies in the New York City police academy in 1973.

They aren't close friends on the job, but after they each marry, they move into adjacent homes in the small town of Gillam. Francis’ wife, Lena, gives birth to three daughters, Sara, Natalie and Kate. Brian’s wife, Anne, loses her first child but then has a boy, Peter. Anne has a mental health problem.

Peter and Kate are friends and when they are teens they become closer. But on the night Peter tells Kate he thinks they will marry one day, Brian tells Anne that he is moving out. Anne becomes violent. Peter and Kate, who are 14, are driven apart by her actions.

This novel is a multigenerational, character-driven tale of families, with mental illness, infidelity and alcoholism testing them. Although the writing is excellent, the book doesn't have much of a plot and it moves slowly. I didn't feel a connection with the characters.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.