This is an extremely light read, except for the difficulty reading the dialog. It was often hard to tell which member of the married couple seeking counseling was speaking, because the speaker was not identified. The device (a couple meeting in a pub before their counseling sessions) was interesting and I liked the characters. I thought the plot was interesting.

A quick 10-chapter book that provides Hornby's usual level of excellent entertainment. It sounds like the premise of a joke: a couple sits in a bar waiting to go to marriage counseling and they talk. It works.

In a short ten chapters, the reader is dropped right in to the marriage crisis between Louise and Tom. Every chapter starts with them at a pub, minutes before they are to go to their appointment for couple's counseling. They discuss what has happened to their marriage (from boredom to an affair) and what they will do with the pieces of their marriage they have left.
I enjoyed how Hornby put us in the same place every chapter, but with slightly different circumstances every time. However, it wasn't enough for me to rally behind the characters. In the end, I really didn't care if they saved their marriage or not.

I received a free copy from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review. I'd give this book 3.5 stars. I enjoyed this light read, except for the difficulty reading the dialog. It was often hard to tell which member of the married couple seeking counseling was speaking, because the speaker was not identified. This is the first book I've read by Nick Hornby and I'd be willing to read another. The device (a couple meeting in a pub before their counseling sessions) was interesting and I liked the characters.

Things I thought about before I read this book:
1. I super loved /High Fidelity/ when I read it (seriously 20) years ago and read it several times, but I haven't read it in the time (decades) since.
2. Even at the time, I recognized that the main character is a dick.
3. Although I claim to like I really like this author, I never read any of his other books. What if I didn't like them? Scary.
4. I wondered how much his writing had changed between /High Fidelity/ and now; I bet if I reread it now, I would feel differently about it.
</rambling>

This will be a great book for readers who like to fill in blank spaces, making the stories their own; also probably great for book groups. The structure was interesting-- told entirely in conversations between a couple as they meet for a drink before their weekly therapy appointment. I always want to know more, though, so it felt a little shallow for me. Because it's mostly conversation, with a little observational narration (who sat where, who touched their face) but without any omniscient or first-person feeling-sharing, I didn't feel like I really got to know either of the characters.

One problem that I hope was just formatting issues in the ARC eBook was that sometimes it was difficult to tell who was talking. There wasn't "s/he said" after every line, which is fine as a writing style. But normally the reader would rely on paragraph breaks to indicate a change in speaker. Hopefully just because of the file, the breaks were kind of random. (I've definitely seen that in ARC downloads before.) Interested readers should definitely wait for the print; it also might make a good audiobook.

Told mostly through dialogue, this novella highlights the relationship of an estranged married couple as they navigate infidelity and subsequent therapy. The interactions are clever, sarcastic, and snarky making it a quick entertaining read, but I was left wanting more. Not necessarily more of the dialogue...but the backstory and the thoughts of the characters. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't wholly satisfying.