I truly enjoyed this book. I felt like my recent reads have been falling short and I was in need of a book that captivated me from the beginning. Ask Again, Yes did exactly that. Keane did an amazing job of exploring each character’s view of certain situations. I enjoyed each character’s storyline and how they connected throughout the novel. This book takes a deep look into family relationships and how much effect ones childhood influences their adult life. I would absolutely recommend this book. A great read!

There are some novels that present themselves as loud and invasive, and you are thoroughly struck by the flash of the plot or the characters. Instead, what Keane presents is a quiet melodrama about 2 Irish families whose husbands are on the police force, and who end up living next to each other. Two of their children are best friends,with their friendship developing into something more, when an awful turn of events splits the families apart. This event reverberates through the years, even when the children get married and it colors everyone's lives. It is only through the passage of time that they can look back through the lens of maturity and learn to forgive and to understand one another. The characters are so well drawn, and the adage of "the truth will set you free" becomes an undercurrent that makes one connect and feel for these players undergoing such a fierce family drama.

A beautifully crafted family drama that explores love, forgiveness and the ability to move on.
Do you have the strength to move past a tragedy? Come out the other side stronger? Or will the crushing weight of it all define you, re-shaping your life?

Francis and Lena Gleeson are raising their 3 daughters in a quiet neighborhood. Frances is a police officer well respected by all. A rising star in his department, he has truly found his calling.

Brian Stanhope lives next door with his wife Anne and their son. Brian too is a police officer, and though he was once partnered with Francis, his career path has fallen well behind.

When a tragedy rocks the lives of both families no one is left unscathed. Not the parents, not the children. All are left in the aftermath, trying to stitch their lives back together and move forward.

This book left me at a loss for words. It touched me profoundly. Not to tears, but somewhere perhaps even deeper, causing me to look back at my own family...my life. How a singular event in your past can shape your life. Taking you down a road you may have otherwise never ventured.
Even now...I find myself still reflecting upon this book.

An emotional buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner and Mary Beth Keane for an ARC to read and review.

Ask Again, Yes is a gut wrenching family drama about love conquering all. The Stanhopes and the Gleesons begin their tale with Brian and Francis attend the police academy together and ultimately become neighbors. Though not close, their two children, Peter and Katie, begin a friendship and relationship that spans decades.

There is a lot of story packed into this book. It spans decades and generations. Not short on tragedy, Ask Again, Yes was ripe with family drama, relationships, love, personal growth and a long-hard look at mental health in America. The story captivated me, but I wanted more - each character got limited page time, but they were such complex characters that they needed more.

I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley.

Love and loss. Family drama. Multigenerational family ties. Issues thAt continue on for decades. Taboo nature of mental illness. You’ll find all of that in this book.

There wasn’t much of a true storyline, a lot of recapping considering the length of the issues. It was well written but a little slow for me at times

Ask Again, Yes is beautifully written family saga spanning decades of not only heartache and tragedy, but also love and unconditional support. Each character is thoroughly developed, their experiences raw and completely human. I found the story of the Gleesons and the Stanhopes to be very moving. Ms. Keane is able to show us just how much a relationship can withstand. This book will be on your mind for days after you finish reading.

Thank you to NetGalley, Scribner, and author Mary Beth Keane for gifting me this advanced reader copy!

Multi=generational family sagas always tend to stay with me well beyond the last page. Ask Again, Yes is a book that I knew from the beginning would fall into that category. Captivating from the very first page to the very last, Keane has created a standout of a novel and truly three-dimensional characters in the Gleeson and Stanhope families. Ask Again, Yes is not so much a plot driven novel (although there is plenty of that, and it's a wonderfully written plot) but this story is really in the characters - their actions, their thoughts, their backgrounds and even their futures. Perfect for fans of Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings, Ask Again Yes is a wonderful addition to my favorite books in this genre.

Thank you to Scribner for an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

From childhood best friends to estranged but never forgotten, Kate and Peter fall back into love- and marriage. But this is no fairy-tale romance. It's at times touching, at others a heart-rending family saga. I recommend it for book clubs, as there's a lot to discuss in this one.

Oh my... this book...these characters.
I loved this story. The story starts out in the 1970’s, with two young New York police officers (partners, for awhile) who end up living next door to each other in a suburban neighborhood.
As their family’s are growing, a tragedy occurs that changes all their lives, and keeps them entwined forever.
Mental illness, alcoholism, estrangements, and most of all love and forgiveness are at the center of this novel that takes the reader with them to present day.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC!

'It didn’t seem that important, not nearly as important as people would make it. It was just a thing that happened, same as all other things that happened.'

Two young NYPD rookies partnered up for a time in 1973 later become neighbors, though not exactly friends, Francis finds Brian to be ‘a likable guy.’ So when Brian ends up in the house Francis once told him about , it seems fitting his wife Lena would befriend Brian’s wife Anne. Lena certainly makes an effort, trying her best to quietly offer support, always met with Anne’s back retreating into her home, finding offense to any offer of help, wondering what she could have possibly done to offend her. At a loss to understand Anne’s off-putting behavior, Lena focuses instead on her own family, both women give birth to children only six months apart, Peter and Kate. Despite the relationship between their mothers, Peter and Kate become close friends as they come of age but their childhoods couldn’t be any more different.

There is something wrong with Peter’s mother, even as a little girl Kate notices Anne isn’t like other moms. It’s the very thing Peter’s own father doesn’t acknowledge, to his way of thinking she just needs help around the house, rest, quiet. The problem is Peter never is sure which mother is going to appear each day, if she will ’emerge after a few days’ from her room and be his favorite version or be irritated by the noise a little boy can’t help but make. Life in his home is about forecasting her moods, in order to navigate his day. Of course he loves her, despite her growing indifference. Her troubling behavior becomes impossible to hide, it’s more than just being ‘sensitive.’ Their problems are beginning to spill out of the house.

Something about Kate gets under Anne’s skin, and Lena wants Kate to just find a new friend, anyone but Peter! No love is lost between the women. Something is humming beneath the surface and in one moment their lives are altered forever. We follow the aftermath of one horror filled moment, and watch as every character tries to build a new life from the ruins. Peter feels staggeringly helpless when the most important people are absented from his world, but nothing rips him apart more than losing Kate.

In staying true to our nature, helping others, we could risk losing everything. One incident can drive a wedge between spouses, destroy young love, and shake up our future. Kate and Peter are destined never to forget each other, but coming together again is for some a bigger betrayal. Love and loyalty is tested, more than just the meaning of family. This book is disturbing and deeply moving, we know the hand that brings down destruction, but to demonize isn’t so simple in this story. Mary Beth Keane has written a story with mental illness at the forefront, and how with Anne’s decline it’s the failure of those around her that sets the stage for tragedy. Why do we go on like everything is fine? There are so many people within us all, how different we are when life tests us.

Marriage is explored too, in how Brian tiptoes around in his, how our partners needs often eclipse our own as witnessed by Lena’s loneliness and Francis’s need for trees and quiet, a place separate from his job, his grueling work. The way things shift after the incident, why the act happened at all, due in part to one partner’s helplessness in understanding his own wives deterioration. Infidelity, loyalty, sticking when things are hopeless. Marriage is a different beast when life beats us, so different from when we’re fresh and young.

Time moves on and life closes in on us but sometimes it is only the broken people who truly understand our struggle. Sometimes you face the enemy only to see roles aren’t set in stone. Things really do sometimes come full circle, and my heart was in my throat at the end. We cannot outrun that which shapes us and while we don’t have to be victims, we’re not untouchable when it comes to things we inherit from our former selves, or our families, loved ones. There will always come a time you have to confront the chaos of a moment. Yes, add this to your TBR list!

Publication Date: May 28, 2019

Scribner

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner books for an ARC of this 5🌟 read by Mary Beth Keane. Put this on your TBR now. Coming late May, a compelling story that follows two families over four decades. Chracter development and evolution is outstanding. While I felt so much for all the characters, I adored uncle George. Trigger warnings for mental illness and alcoholism. But ultimately a heart warming story about forgiveness. Fans of Commonwealth, Saints for All Occasions and Little Fires Everywhere will love this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for sharing the advanced copy of Mary Beth Keane’s upcoming title. I thought this book was excellent and flew through it in less than 24 hours. It’s a story of ordinary life and people, forever changed by an extraordinary event. Even though the plots and stories were quite different, it reminded me most of Matthew Thomas’ “We Are Not Ourselves” in that I instantly felt an affinity for some of the characters and just needed to find out what would happen to them. Highly recommended.

This was one of the most perfect books I have ever read. When I began reading, I had no idea what I was heading into. The pages gutted me in a good way. The writing is so real that I was completely immersed in the lives of each character. MaryBeth Keane leaves not even the tiniest of characters untouched. It has a similar essence to the novels Brooklyn and Maine. The story inspires epiphanies for the reader to think again how they saw people in their own past. When I love a book, I become passionate to try to have every reader I know add this to their must list.

The beautiful thing about literary fiction is that it allows you to see the truth more clearly than you can in your own life and in greater crispness than any memoir can ever capture. Ask Again, Yes tells of two families living next door to one another. Both fathers are cops. One family has three girls, the other family has a single son, Peter. The book follows the families from before marriage until their children are adults themselves.

To share too much of this story would be a disservice to the reader and the discovery that takes place along the journey, but I will say that it's quite clear early on that something isn't quite right with one of the mothers. There is a silence that overcomes the conversation whenever the subject of Peter's parents comes up.  When one realizes that there is something they withhold from conversations, without realizing they are leaving that person out of their life stories, as if they exist without them. Friends don't come over. There is a degree of embarrassment and even if something is a secret, everyone knows.  It's out of respect that they don't bring it up, but they know. Excuses are made when comments do come and loneliness thrives in living a life where you can't share your true self. It reminds me of a George Orwell quote from 1984,

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

There is so much truth in this novel as it explores love, forgiveness, healing, family, and friendship. Please read it and feel all the feelings.

Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Ask Again, Yes.

This was my first book by the author, and though I enjoyed her writing, I wasn't invested in the story.

It's a tale about love, loss, the mistakes we make and how we find our ways back to each other.

I think my main issue is that I never connected with any of the characters, not even Kate and Peter.

I could sympathize with their issues, their family drama but I did not care enough to care very much.

The problem with long multigenerational tales like this is that there is a lot of summarizing and recapping as the years pass, and there was a lot of that here; the blossoming of childhood love, the years apart, the aftermath of a shocking crime, the years after, adulthood, and the obstacles and love and triumphs inherent in any marriage.

I also felt some of the adult characters, not Kate and Peter, were one dimensional, at least, personality wise. Their behaviors were passive, especially in light of a neighbor's mental illness, but then perhaps that was the time.

No one talked about such things; heck, it's still taboo to discuss depression and mental illness. We still have a long way to go.

I'm not a fan of these kinds of novels, where there's not much of a plot, but instead revolves around a family and its dramas.

The writing was good, but the characters and the plot did not hold my interest.

This one was really hard to rate until I thought things through as I wrote my review. There are some very strong positives about this book, but the disappointments are…well, really disappointing.

First, the positives. Ask Again,Yes is extremely well written. This author can really tell a tale in a most accomplished manner. The story involves the relationships between two families and amongst the individual members of both from the early 1970s to the present. The depth and complexity of the writing is impressive. I thought for the most part these people were characterized in a deep and realistic fashion. Moreover, my interest, though it waxed and waned a bit, did not falter though the novel is fairly long.

Then there are the negatives. I found the first 20% of the book to be on the slow side; it was hard to grasp where the story was going. The pace picks up after that, though I wasn’t flipping the pages like mad until the last 20%. In addition, I had a hard time really connecting with the main characters despite the fact they were likeable. Overall, I did enjoy the story, but it just did not draw out any major emotion in me, not even in the end. The ending is actually very well done, but it was like, “hey, that was good” as opposed to “oh, man, I’m going to cry now, and I just don’t want to leave these characters who I will be thinking about for the next couple of months.” I need those feelings to fully enjoy a book. Plus, there was just so much sadness in this novel. Too much for my current mood, I guess. Not really the book’s fault.

Despite the negatives taking up more space than the positives in this review, in the end the latter actually outweighs the former, allowing me to rate this a solid 4 stars. This is indeed a quality work that I can recommend to all looking for a meaty read. Ms. Keane has made an impression on me, and I will definitely be interested in seeing what she comes up with next. I just hope it will have a more profound effect on me.

Thank you Net Galley, Scribner, and Ms. Mary Beth Keane for gifting me an advanced review copy. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

There are very few authors who can write family sagas with each character drawn fully and with depth. Obviously, Keane is one. The story of two rookie cops, the coincidence of owning houses next to each other, and the unspeakable tragedy that occurs.

It is a novel of friendship, love and forgiveness. Keane doesn’t skimp on the dark side of human life, alcoholism, mental illness and isolation. The portraits of each person in this drama are realistic, but so sympathetic, that as a reader, I loved all of them. I wanted positive closure and hope. I rooted for every blameless character caught up in the drama of this novel.

She manages to give depth and grace to even the minor characters, like Uncle George. There is not an unsympathetic character in the book, despite the hideous drama of their lives.

So, thank you NETGALLEY for giving me the privilege of reading this beautiful story and meeting the Stanhopes and Gleesons whose lives make this a treasure.

5 HUGE STARS!!! I have an official book hangover after finishing Ask Again, Yes! The moment I read the last page, I was immediately texting all my friends and family letting them know to put this a the very top of their summer reading list! Mary Beth Keane has blown me away with this raw, heartbreaking, heart-warming and touching storyline! The characters are so well developed—so much so, you forget you don’t actually know them in real life! I flew through the book because it’s just that fantastic and I already know I will be re-reading it again in the near future! Ask Again, Yes is a total and complete 5 star gem that is an absolute MUST READ! This is the first novel I’ve read from Mary Beth Keane and I am so excited to read her prior novels!

This is a poignant story about two families, and a tragedy that follows them for four decades. There is good character development and the author's theme of regret, compassion and forgiveness is well done.

Very good story and great character development. Really enjoyed the thought that went into telling this story over many decades. That can be difficult to do! Excellent characters and depth of characters that enhance the great story. The only negative would be the length, it could have been a little shorter and still complete.