Well developed characters, but A little too slow paced for me, found myself putting it down and not rushing to go back.

My first 5 star book this year!! Loved loved it! So many emotions and the characters were so well written. I could feel the conflict in each of them and understand why they would do what they did. It’s so hard to give many details without spoiling the story so I will just say “read this book! ASAP!”

Ask Again, Yes is about two families who lived next to each other, the husbands working with each other on the police force. Francis’s daughter becomes friends, and later lovers, with Brian‘s son. But after years, a terrible experience drives the families apart, and even pushes a rift within the members in the separate families. What follows shows how everyone deals with the aftermath, and if they could ever forgive one another.

This book is so popular right now, and it seemed like it would be a good novel, so I really wanted to read it. However, it just couldn’t hold my attention. I sped read/skimmed through most of it. If you like family generational stories that go through the daily living of people, you would probably like this story. I recently read Pachinko, and the genre is similar (at least they felt similar to me). So if books like Pachinko (slow-moving realistic stories that span years) are up your alley, then give this book a try. Though it may not be for me, I think there will be plenty of people who like it and find something in it to connect with.

Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for a copy to review.

The title of this book summarizes concisely how I feel about this book. While reading it, people asked if I was enjoying it. I had a hard time answering. Overall I was finding the plot interesting, but there was something (I couldn’t quite put my finger on it), - something was keeping me from fully engaging with this book. Was it the pacing, character development, the point-of-view, that was bothering me, maybe? But I always said ask me when I’m finished. Well, I’ve turned the last page, and have all the aforementioned issues resolved for me? No, not completely. But if you ask again, yes, I did enjoy this book.
•The story centers around Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope. They are nextdoor neighbors and best friends. Their parents are immigrants making a life in the suburbs of America, both their fathers are cops on the NYPD, but there is an easiness between these neighbors.
•When Kate and Peter are in eighth grade a horrible act of violence occurs that causes the lives of these families to be changed forever. Peter and Kate are split apart, having to deal with the consequences on their own. Years later, they reach out to one another. Can they make a relationship work with their families’ pasts looming over them? Will their families even accept their relationship? And are they even the same people who grew up as kids together?
•Mary Beth Keane does a nice job of bringing empathy to some very serious issues. It’s not the heaviest book I’ve read on mental illness or alcoholism or family drama, but she has a lot of these issues running throughout the story. And she handles them well, showing the ugly side, but also a side of understanding, and what forgiveness has the capacity to do. Not just for the other person, but many times more importantly, for yourself. This book truly is about two families, with Kate and Peter in the middle. It is about how these families are torn apart by a horrible event: scarred, broken, hurt, lonely. Yet tied together by love: healing, growing, forgiving. There is a line in the book that sums it up so well, “love is only part of the story.”
Thank you to @netgalley and @scribnerbooks.

Mary Beth Keane’s new novel, “Ask Again, Yes” is now on my list for best books for 2019. Two rookie policeman, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, work together in New York City, and soon move next door to each other in a small commuter town. There they start and raise their families while their careers go in diverging directions. There are troubling signs of unacknowledged and untreated mental illness and the families don’t really connect except for two of the children, Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope. They grow up together and fall in love as teenagers, until a night of tragedy sends all their lives crashing off the rails. The repercussions of that night continue to haunt both families for decades and demonstrate how wounds can fester and affect people until they are finally healed.

“Because it means that all that stuff, from years ago, it didn’t end back then. It’s still happening.” Well, no, Peter thought, but he didn’t want to argue. Everything that happened had happened to their parents. Or at least, their parents were the agents of all that had happened. Or at least, their parents were the ones who could have stopped it from happening. Or . . . He got that choked-off feeling he always got whenever he thought about that night. If he’d never suggested to Kate that they should sneak out. If they hadn’t been caught. One thing leads to another which leads to another, yes, but who could have predicted that last fallen domino would skid so far from the neatly toppled row? Not the pair of teenagers, that was for sure.”

Despite parental abandonment and the physical and emotional suffering that members of the family endure, redemption and forgiveness can and do occur, even though they are hard-won.. The dramatic events that occur in the novel are always in service of the story, not merely devices to propel the plot. Keane is an exceptional writer and the book radiates with empathy, insight, compassion, and understanding. The characters are extremely well developed and the story told is so profound and powerfully written that it is still resonating in my mind. Highly recommended.

My review was posted on Goodreads on 6/25/19 .

Kate and Peter were born 6 months apart and lived next door to each other their entire lives. They grew up best friends and had a special bond no one else could really understand. Then one day a tragedy strikes both families that forces them apart. This is a story about how they try to find each other again and if they are able to overcome all the tragedies in their lives together or if it ends up being too much to overcome.
I liked this book. For me, I’m not sure what all the hype was about because it was just ok for me. I definitely wanted to keep reading but at the same time I just didn’t think it was great. I think a lot of people will like it though.
Thanks you #AskAgainYes #NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Mary Beth Keane’s book is based on a relatable and interesting premise: two children whose lives are forever intertwined by fate. I appreciated the complexity of mental illness and how it affects the whole family. I found the main male character’s struggles to be a bit predictable and his relationship with him wife, as well. The book is a good read—
But it didn’t move fast enough for me. I tend to gravitate towards stories that move quickly and if they do not, there has to be a clear reason why. For me, this book didn’t hit that bar.
It was, however, well written.

I really wanted to like this one! I've seen it everywhere on social media and I honestly didn't think I'd end up with an ARC through NetGalley, but alas I did. And now I'm paying for it.
The writing style just isn't for me. I don't like the long sentences and the structure. It's just so weird. I couldn't get into the story because the writing was so bland. I'd read a page and then look up wondering what I just read. It was so boring!

This novel is extremely heavy and emotional, I found it very tedious. A saga of depressing event after depressing event made it hard for me to connect to the characters. Boring.

I absolutely adore this book. So much so, that I chose it as my BOTM pick in addition to already having it on NG to read and review.
This is a gorgeously written, beautifully flowing family saga that has a little bit of everything. I love the Romeo and Juliet story line through part of it as well as the basis of the connection between the two central families. My husband's family are from New York and originally from Ireland so many of these themes rang completely true to character for me.
There was an interesting level of psychopathology of both sides of the family that could have led to any number of outcomes. I enjoyed the pacing of this novel and the themes that ran throughout.
This will be a book club pick for me for our group in the future!

Highly recommend!

#AskAgainYes #NetGalley

We’ve woken up to a stormy morning here in Houston (hello, hurricane season!) but luckily I snapped this for the gram’ yesterday! Many thanks to @scribnerbooks for gifting me a copy of ASK AGAIN, YES when they sent me their new summer tote!

This is a narrative that follows two families (Irish immigrants to the US) and how a tragic incident one evening impacts the trajectory of their lives from then on. I couldn’t help but compare it to Patchett’s COMMONWEALTH - though I felt the the characterization and narrative style in Keane’s book to be more compelling and memorable. We skip perspectives and time as the narrative progresses, and the choice of which character to tell each point of the narrative from was really well done, and a highlight of the book for me. It also spoke a lot to themes of mental health the legacy of trauma on a family, and the power of forgiveness - and while I enjoyed my time with it, for me it unraveled in the final quarter. There was some neatness that didn’t sit with me and felt like it needed further exploration given the development of the plot. Still a novel I’d recommend, just not one that lived up to the immense social media hype for me. It was an excellent buddy read with @kdwinchester and I think given the themes it brings up and discussions it prompts, it’d make a great bookclub pick!

3.5 🌟

Never having read this author before II wasn’t sure what to expect. She did a very thorough job with the different characters in the story truly flushing out their personalities. Everything between love and hate was depicted in this story of two families. It was a story of how one incident can reverberate throughout the rest of your life. This is a great story for book groups that love to examine character growth.

There was so much in this story that I should have loved. I love literary fiction, stories where we can see the past reverberate in the future and what those ripples look like. This had all the elements to make me fall in love with it but something didn’t click with me. I didn’t like it, I felt like the story was telling me what to feel instead of showing me and allowing me to create my own impressions. I also didn’t like the depiction of mental illness that was used here and when we are given a glimpse to the past is this supposed to answer some of the questions in the future. I really wanted to love this story and there were sentences that I truly loved. Overall this book wasn’t for me but I’m in the minority with this one.

I had a very hard time reading this book or even understanding it. It dragged to the point of skimming many parts. I cannot honestly say I’d recommend it. Why Peter became an alcoholic was ???. Yes he had issues with his parents but he got the one thing he had always wanted- Kate. At any rate, thank you NetGalley for allowing me the read this book in exchange for an honest review. Just sorry my review couldn’t be better.

“ Ask Again Yes” has been on my TBR list since I first heard about it. It has been one of my most anticipated reads of 2019. With all this being said, Mary Beth Keane did not disappoint! I won’t go into the details surrounding this book because I hate giving a summary or even glimpses into things that happen. What I will say is that this book grabbed my attention and held it throughout. Characters were very developed. This story explores so many levels of what it is to be human. Like seriously, there were so many layers to this book! It is a story of friendship, love, forgiveness and more. I cannot recommend it enough. 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

* I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

Very good, sad story with a plot that you've read before and yet it still had me engaged and curious at the prologue. Around 45% of the way through the book I made a note that it seems like the story was over - what more could happen. It's almost like book 1 and book 2 are combined into one tale. Although the plot wasn't unique the writing was good with strong character development. I loved George - a great guy flaws and all. In fact perhaps that is the strength of the character development - the good guys have flaws and the "bad guys" have glimpses of goodness. I definitely recommend this book.

Summer reading lists and the bookstagram buzz have been all about Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane. It is a family drama that begins in the 1970s with two police officers who become neighbors. Their children grow up together, particularly Peter and Kate. They become inseparable. However, Peter’s mom begins to show signs of struggle. One night, a tragedy occurs that will change the course of these two families forever.

*Sigh* I wanted to love this book. This will be a very unpopular opinion but this book did not live up to the hype. Don’t get me wrong, the writing is beautiful. There is so much emotion to take in. I actually took a few days to read this because I needed time to process everything that was happening. The problem that I had is the pacing. For me, it is slow. It takes over 100 pages for anything to happen and then after the tragic incident, the rest just seemed predictable. The book is written like a timeline. The book goes through over 30 years of history of this family.

This novel does go into mental health and addiction and how it is viewed over time. Even though there is still a lot of stigmas attached to mental health and addiction, there is at least a conversation now. We have more options. This novel shows how at one point, no one talked about it and how it dramatically affected families. I did enjoy the characters. It is heartbreaking that they felt that they couldn’t reach out for help.

Overall, it is worth the read. It just didn’t reel me in as I hoped it would. For this, I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley for a copy of this book!

this book will stay with you well after you close the pages. . two families lives are irrevocably intertwined when two rookie policemen work together for six weeks one summer. keane has written unforgettable story.

4.5 stars.

The first half of Ask Again, Yes was a solid five star read for me, while the second half seemed to lose a little of its steam. But just a little. I never wanted not to keep reading, though. Keane does a remarkable job establishing the setting and characters for this novel. It's the perfect book club book, plenty to digest, discuss, and debate. Plenty of family drama, with plenty of unexpected results, and with an ending that satisfies. I will be eager to read her next book!

I think you should know before picking up this book that this is a story that will really make you think, make you question choices you would make in the same situation and will sit with you for awhile. And none of those things are bad. The blurb they write to give you an idea of what this book is about doesn't do it justice. That is just the tip of the iceberg for this deep story that keeps having layers upon layers added as you get into the trenches of it.

This is a family drama that spans over almost four generations and will tug so strongly at your heart strings. This is not your average love story and this is definitely not your normal family drama. Mary Beth Keane has developed characters that are just as strong as the storyline she has written. She takes you on a beautiful journey of friendship, love, tragedy, growth, redemption and forgiveness. Some very true and realistic issues are addressed and you see how these issues not only effect the lives of each individual character but also the domino effect it has in their lives and their families. And the author handles this delicately and with compassion. It's emotional and dramatic, but very realistic and one you will become invested in. I came to honestly care about each of the characters and what happens to them (I don't want to give any spoilers away). You will run through every possible emotion reading this book. For me, that is rare for an author to accomplish and it be an overall enjoyable read by the end much less a 5 star read!! And there are some great lessons to be learned from reading this and searching your own personal truths of how you would respond in this scenario.

I truly enjoyed this book. It's one I will definitely recommend and I think it would make an excellent book club read. This is a fantastic book for discussion. And this is an author I would like to read more of.

My thanks to Mary Beth Keane, Scribner and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.