#40: ASK AGAIN, YES // This book just left the biggest smile on my face with tears in my eyes. A novel that started out so tragically turns into something so completely beautiful. This read is packed with wonderful characters, all flawed, all growing, all struggling with something, but all tied together.
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Kate and Peter grow up next door to one another, and we get to watch their relationship bloom. After a horrible tragedy, they are forced apart, but find their way back to each other. This is a story of redemption and mending broken relationships.
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🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 - I think this is in my top 5 of 2019.

What a lovely read. About family and love and the secrets we keep even from ourselves. About acceptance and forgiveness and moving on. Beautifully written and well rounded characters that I still think about. Recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for gifting me with a review copy of Mary Beth Keane’s newest novel. Ask Again, Yes. In exchange for the ARC I offer my unbiased review.

I had previously read and loved Fever, by Mary Beth Keane so I was beyond ecstatic to receive a review copy of her latest work. Initially this book felt like a huge departure from her earlier work and I was feeling a little ambivalent towards Ask Again, Yes. Whereas Fever is historical fiction this book is more of a family saga, spanning decades and generations. However once I found my groove with this novel, I could not put it down. The writing was compelling and realistic, the characters were multi dimensional and the situations were completely relevant and believable. The main plot revolves around an incident that forever links the Gleeson and Stanhope families. However, the incident sets the stage for the next thirty years, which are transitioned seamlessly and effectively. The actions, causes and consequences are felt by all the characters and in the skilled hands of Keane the story just flourishes.
I was actually disappointed when the book ended. I felt like I could continue reading on about these flawed but endearing characters. I’m pretty certain this book will be a huge summer sensation and one people will be talking about.

Ask Again, Yes is a beautiful family drama that takes a hard look at generational trauma, diseases and mental illness, and the overall difficulties of being a part of a family.

So I can get it out of the way, the one thing that really bothered me about this book was the huge jumps forward in time. I'm the type of reader that wants to spend slow, quality time with the characters so that by the time I leave them, I feel like I'm walking away from a friend. Because the scope of this story is so broad, Keane does not give a lot of attention to small, unimportant moments, which to me are what really makes a book a lot of the time. This isn't so much a criticism, as I understand why she made the choices she did, but an explanation of why this wasn't a 5-star favorite for me. I did appreciate that we got to walk with Peter and Kate through 30 years of their life, but I just kept wanting more details about events that were glossed over!

But the good...and there is so much good! This is, through and through, a story about family. A story about parents and the ways that their decisions can make or break their children. A story about marriage and romantic love and the difficulties that come along with making a lifelong commitment to someone who can never be perfect. A story about found family, and the relationships we make with people outside our nuclear family that can become more important to us than anything else in the world. A story about disease, and the way that illnesses of the mind and body get passed down through generations. A story about forgiveness, and the fact that if you want to live in a family, forgiveness is going to be necessary. A story about in-laws and the family that are forced upon us that we don't choose or even want.

I could go on and on. But I felt like Keane really found her story and then took it apart, examining it from every angle, before she put it back together, and what resulted was a really successful family drama.

Oh, one more thing. That "violent event that separates the neighbors" (in the plot summary, not a spoiler!)....prepare thyself!

"The thing is, Peter, grown-ups don't know what they're doing any better than kids do. That's the truth."
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This gem is getting tucked into my favorites list for 2019. Run, don’t walk to your nearest bookstore and pick this one up because I got the same feeling reading this book that I get with all the books I truly love, the ones I give 5 stars to, the ones I will keep forever. I will beg people to read it. If someone asks me for a recommendation, I’ll tell them to read this.
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One of the reasons I joined Bookstagram was to find new books to read and to find people who loved books as much as I do. So I have to thank Deb @lonestarwords for this recommendation and I’m so glad I followed her lead! This is a family drama, spanning almost four decades. Francis Gleeson and Bill Stanhope meet as NYPD rookies in 1973. They aren’t really good friends but their lives begin to mirror each other’s as they both move to the same little town outside NY and buy houses across the street from one another. And that’s where the story really begins with the dynamics of each family. Do you ever look at people’s houses and wonder about the lives inside? This book is an answer to that question. It’s a family drama— marriage struggles, addiction, darkness, tragedy. Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope are the two children caught in the intersection of their parents. Peter is Bill and Anne Stanhope’s only child. Kate is the youngest of Francis and Lena Gleeson’s three daughters.
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Kate and Peter find friendship and solace in one another until tragedy strikes. Every character is so well-written. Even with all their flaws and failings, I felt for every single character, including the ones that were so difficult to find any sympathy for them at all. Nothing is overdone and this was such a quick read for me because I couldn’t put this book down. I won’t say anything more except to urge you to read this book for yourself. Many thanks to Scribner Books and NetGalley for my copy. I definitely want a physical copy of this book so I can keep it on my favorites shelf!

4.5 memorable character stars (rounded up)

An epic family saga that begs the question – can you go home again?

Mary Beth Keane has written a novel that brings her characters to life, the pacing is excellent, and the events that happen are realistic and heart-breaking. There are some tough issues addressed including mental health and alcoholism, and the impact on people. This was one book that I didn’t want to end.

The book opens with two young men who join the New York police force, start families, and move to the suburbs – in fact, they end up as neighbors. Their children, Kate and Peter, become best friends, until a terrible tragedy occurs, and one family falls apart and moves away.

The two families are very different – Francis and Lena have a loving marriage and provide stability for their daughters, including Kate. Things are different at Brian and Anne’s house. Anne has serious mental health concerns that were not treated and Peter ends up being negatively impacted.

Kate and Peter end up reconnecting as young adults and build a life together. Peter, especially, needs to grapple with his past in order to find peace with this life and family. The book ends with a powerful sense of forgiveness and I marvel that these characters became so real to me. I recommend this one if you like character-driven family stories.

*I will update my Goodreads review on publication date.

I love this book! I am known for being relatively easy with handing out stars, (I'm working on it!!), but this one truly deserves each one if the five I'm giving it! The story takes you across many years and works through family drama with characters you feel like you know. It feels real and raw. I know this book won't be for everyone, but if you like family drama, strong character development and a great story that spans years while following multiple characters, this is definitely for you!

This book came highly (highly) recommended from a friend with similar reading tastes so I was thrilled to receive an advanced reader copy from NetGalley and Scribner. This is such an important book and I think it's going to end up on many people's book of the year list, including my own. More importantly, I think this book will start important conversations on mental health, addiction, healing, and reconciliation. The book is candid and stark while maintaining its humanity with characters that the reader can more than relate to- each character feels like someone the reader could be.

Trigger warnings: mental health, addiction, alcoholism, mild conversational coarse language (several minor scenes that involve sexual assault and suicide)

At times, Ask Again, Yes is painful to read. Yet, as said in the overview, there is “tenderness, generosity and grace.” I loved this book - the story of two families, damaged by a horrific incident that threatens to haunt them through the rest of their lives, I was drawn in immediately. Keane writes of these ordinary people, their ordinary lives, all struggling to come to terms with themselves, and their deeds, in some way or another. It’s the kind of book which envelopes you, I couldn’t stop thinking about these people, and couldn’t wait to get back to their story. At times, reading a few pages or several hundred, I was struck by a profound sadness, which stayed with me the rest of my day or night. As humans, we can be incredible...or incredibly cruel. Ask Again, Yes is full of both kinds of moments. My biggest takeaway, my overall feeling when I finished, was how wonderful the blessing of forgiveness. No matter what these families experienced...they survived, and were better people because of it. “But as Francis Gleeson had once told Kate, love is only part of the story...”

Every now and then, if you’re lucky, you stumble upon something that is so beautiful and special that you know you’ll remember it for a long time; a good and well-told story. That’s what I found when I opened the pages of Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane.

This is not the story of one family, but of two, the Gleeson family, and the Stanhope family, told over the course of more than four decades. Told so richly, and beautifully, evenly and fairly, that the reader comes to know each one of the family members, and the events that happened in their lives as if they were a part of the story too. Don’t you love it when that happens? When a book grabs your heart and your mind and your emotions so totally that it makes it hard to put the book down at the end? I do!!

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope came to small town of Gillam with their wives when they were young rookies in the same precinct with the NYPD. They lived next door to each other. Francis and Lena Gleeson had three girls, the youngest, Kate born six months after Peter is born to Brian and Anne Stanhope. The two of them latched onto each other as infants, toddlers and childhood friends, always close, always together. Peter didn’t have as easy childhood. His mother, Anne, was quiet, and different from other mothers. She didn’t talk much, didn’t want to have friends, or talk with the neighbors, didn’t like to leave the house. When she did talk, it was usually because she got all worked up about something. Then she raged, threw things, cried. Peter didn’t know what was wrong, but he knew she loved him, even when she hurt him, he knew that. He tried so hard to be good for her. His dad just looked sadder and sadder as the years passed, and he started drinking more and more.

One day, in the spring of eighth grade, Kate and Peter were together like always. They were growing up, and new feelings were growing between them. It was a little bit strange, but exciting too in a way! Anne saw them through her window and didn’t like it one bit, not one little bit! She came out of the house and told Kate that afternoon to stay away from Peter! She was really upset! Kate’s mom, Lena heard the noise and came out to the yard. After hearing what the fuss was about, Lena sent Kate into the house. That night after dinner, Peter and Kate snuck out to talk. When they went back home, Anne and Brian were fighting again, loudly. Not too long after Kate returned to her house, Peter came to the Gleeson doorstep and asked if someone would please call the police for him. Francis held the door open for him and told him to use the phone in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Lena started walking over to Peter’s house. Francis ran after her and stood beside her as he rang the bell. Anne opened the door and welcomed them in, just as they saw Brian walking up the stairs. What happened that night changed everything for everyone in both families.

The Stanhope family moved away. Peter and Kate didn’t talk to one another for four years., until Peter writes a letter to her. They meet again, because their ties to each other are deep – life-long deep, but are they deep enough to overcome and move past what had happened that night? Is it even possible? What will their families say?

Gleason brilliantly tells the stories of two families and the impacts each one has on the other. She deals with the hard topics of mental illness, alcoholism, parents who leave their family, and does so with a strong voice of truth, of realism, and yet of grace.

The story will absorb you, emotional involvement with the characters is guaranteed, and the ending might surprise you as much as it did the characters themselves. This is a five-star read!! Please don’t miss it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I've always had a bias for kids over parents. If there's any kind of complicated scenario or relationship I'm more likely to take the kid's side. Multi-generational stories like Ask Again, Yes always challenge those beliefs and I'm grateful for that.

Even so, I think a big part of that is that I'm not a parent, and I have no plans to become one at any point. I feel like people who have kids are easier on other parents, more understanding of some mistakes because they've made them too. Parents are just people. I don't think that's much of an excuse, but is more of a reason that some adults shouldn't reproduce.

I really felt for Kate and Peter as children and young adults, especially when they started living lives of least resistance. You might not outgrow the scars of childhood, but I guess you can treat them. I struggled with wanting to assign blame throughout this novel. It just feels like someone should be at fault. There are parties who bear some responsibility, but I just get so frustrated when they never seem to be the ones to bear the consequences. In this case, life really does imitate art.

Mary Beth Keane does an excellent job juggling multiple viewpoints without abruptly announcing a new 'narrator' or harshly switching the tone. It feels like a movie in that way, just seamlessly checking in on another character, having the passage of time speed up or slow down accordingly. She's also able to put us into the minds of people struggling psychologically, especially when a character is having a breakdown or paranoid episode. Everyone is hurt by untreated mental illness, and she makes you feel that pain multidimensionally.

This was a sad story of hard lessons. Not a happy ending, but some kind of a resolution. The best we can hope for, I guess.

This is one of those perfect books that as a reader I both wanted to finish and yet delay the ending. The characters drive this story about two families who are inextricably connected through time, place and circumstance. When a tragedy threatens to wreck all the lives involved, the strength and love of some make them not only survive but come out stronger.

If you enjoyed last year's "A Place For Us" By Fatima Farheen Mirza" you should pick up "Ask Again, Yes". This story follows two cops who live on the same street in suburban New York and follows their families and their relationships through the years. If you love character driven, quiet stories, read this book.

My new book journal prompts me to describe the book in 3 words. For this book my three would be: Family.
Addiction. Hope.

When I was chatting with someone about this book I said I call these books ‘quiet, but powerful.’ What I mean by that is the book isn’t propelled by an action heavy plot. The novel is immersed in the characters’ essence, motivation, demons and passions. In these quiet novels I find myself so invested, feeling so deeply, caring so strongly, they feel like people I know in my own life. That's when I know I am in the hands of an extremely talented author.

This story follows two families over a span of several decades. The men meet as rookie cops and become suburban neighbors with their young families.

One family is challenged by mental health issues and alcoholism. The other family knows something is unusual next door, but is determined to keep their distance.

Their children, Pete & Kate are drawn to each other despite their parents’ warnings and objections.

A tragic event blows the families apart, yet links them irrevocably.

This is a beautiful story about family, heartbreak, resilience and hope.

This one releases May 28th and I highly recommend you get on that library holds list, or just go ahead and pre-order. It’s that good.

My thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I didn't want to put this book down from the moment I started it...too bad I needed sleep and had other things I needed to do. Still I read it within a few short days and it hurt my heart but also, filled me with hope. Mary Beth Keane did a great job of putting her words down on paper.

Kate and Peter, born to neighbors, 6 months apart, had a connection from the beginning of their time. They were best friends but more than best friends, they knew each other and loved each other before they were even aware of that fact. Kate had a blessed life and a loving family but Peter had a harsh, troubled life, both a troubled dad and a troubled mom. Peter carried the weight of the world on his young shoulders, weight that a child should not have to carry.

When Kate is 13, Peter 14, something happens that shatters their lives and the lives of their families. Peter and his family have to leave immediately and Kate is left with a hole in her heart, Peter too is left with a hole, holes that only the other can fill. Eventually Kate and Peter make contact again and all of the past is still with them and their families, past that is part of their present too. I won't say more about the book except that it was so heart-wrenching, so real, but also so full of family and love, that I finished the book wanting to continue being a part of Kate and Peter's lives.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for this ARC.

What a strong, emotional story. Would highly recommend. Definitely a more serious, somber story but I very much enjoyed it. A strong familial drama, depressing and REAL - I very much enjoyed the characters and this story. Thought it was a pretty realistic look at life and marriage - nothing was glamorized. A memorable read.

This was a great book. It was a slow burn but I was so invested in the characters and what happened throughout their lives. I have read several books in the past year like this one and I love them. There’s nothing like sitting down to read a book that takes you through decades. You learn so much and you get to see a more thorough and whole character development. I definitely recommend this book to my friends.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

This is your next Book Club book.

1970s NYC. Two Irish cops just starting out. Partners. . Following the American dream - they move to a small suburb north of the City. A house, a big yard. They end up living next door to each other and what follows is a story that spans 30+ years and includes friendship and tragedy but also hope and forgiveness.

It really digs into family dynamics and the part our past plays on our future and our children's futures.

If you're looking for a book that hits all of the emotional buttons - this is yet.

*I received an ARC of this book from Scribner via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Most people read to escape from reality, but the best thing about Ask Again, Yes is how "real" it is. While the majority of us don't grow up in homes plagued by mental illness and alcoholism, the day to day struggles of just getting by-holding down a job, raising a family-are universal. Ask Again, Yes starts out as a "Romeo and Juliet" type love story (although the Capulet's and Montague's feud seems almost charming compared to what the Gleeson's and Stanhope's do to each other), but morphs into a tale of duty, drive, fierce determination, revenge, and the hardest task of all-forgiveness-of ourselves and those who have hurt us. Although filled with stereotypes-both families are headed by Irish Catholic men who become New York City police officers-Mary Beth Keane deftly rises above any cliches with writing so pure, and characters so beautifully rendered, Ask Again, Yes will resonate with anyone who has been a child, parent, sibling or friend. Ask Again, Yes is one of the most highly anticipated books of the summer-and with good reason. It's packed with emotion-although not a "thriller" you'll turn the pages at a frantic pace to see how the story unfolds-and delivers an ending that proves that love and family are to be cherished, and always worth fighting for-even (especially) when the odds are stacked against you.

This is a hard book to review--not because I didn't like it but because it's hard to put into words all the emotions I felt while reading it! I adore family dramas and this one is multi-generational so it's complex, but you are so immersed in the two families that it's hard not to be depressed when they go through trauma and happy when they are not. Basically, you just need to be prepared to realize this isn't a nice fluffy read; it's an amazing story of mental illness, childhood secrets, alcoholism, familial obligations, regret, and ultimately, redemption. It's a little like Romeo and Juliet on steroids--and I mean that it the very best way as I adore Shakespeare and loved this novel; I will be pondering and reveling in these emotions for a long time!