I am sure this book is said somewhere, but 20% in and there isn't enough information to keep me invested to find out what it is. I enjoy a book with an element of suspense, but not at a snail's pace. To me a book like this needs to be fast paced to keep me interested in turning the pages. This book was just too slow for me personally.

I loved Bill Clegg’s Did you ever Have A Family so I was very excited to hear he had a new novel . The novel is about three different girls from very different socio economic classes and how their lies eventually intertwine even after many years ..The novel is beautifully written and emphasizes how one decision in your life affects you and others for a lifetime

A solid work of fiction - I enjoyed the book throughout, but thought the ending fizzled a little. It left me wanting a stronger end to it. Other than that, I found the storyline increbily interesting and loved seeing how all the characters tied together.

Bravo! This is one of those books that pulled me in and would not set me free until I’d finished the very last page. Bill Clegg is a masterful storyteller, weaving many disparate characters into his narrative and tracing the paths that link them all together. I once heard a literary agent say that “every good book is a mystery,” and while this book falls more into the literary fiction category, it is also a wonderful mystery unfolding through beautiful use of language. I will now definitely read Bill Clegg’s NYTimes bestseller, “Did You Ever Have a Family.”

This is a beautiful book about the ties that bind us. It's a story about friendship, life's curve balls, secrets, and healing. While we may not fully like each character, they are relatable in their actions and that is what I appreciated the most. I don't think this book will be for everyone - it's a bit tough at first to keep the different characters straight with their extensive backstories. But once you're "in it", I think you'll appreciate the depth of this tale.

THE END OF DAY by Bill Clegg is a beautiful, sweeping look into a group of people and how, with secrets and betrayals, their lives are inexplicably changed. Across the hours of one day all comes to light in a series of flashbacks interwoven effortlessly into the story.

It’s absence of love that shapes the individual characters of THE END OF DAY, whether it was love not given or love not received. Lupita, the young immigrant that lives with an abusive father and has too few people she can confide in; Dana, who loves best friend Jackie to a fault, but receives no love from her parents; Jackie, who single-mindedly pursues the man who becomes her husband and abandons Dana to do this; Hap, who feels guilty that he had not loved his father and stepfather enough to know who they truly were and Alice, whose secret is the catalyst that starts the book.

Told from the third person omniscient point of view, this character-driven story is heavy with each characters’ thoughts and feelings, shaping each character as someone that readers can empathize with. Themes of immigration, LGBT relationships, and classism are handled with care, making THE END OF DAY a book both relevant and engaging.

While it took a couple of chapters to truly engage myself in THE END OF DAY, I quickly reached the place where I couldn't put it down. In so many ways this book resonated with me, including the idea of regret for things we did when we were younger. As we age it is regrets, in particular, that way heavy on an individuals and Clegg captured this brilliantly.

4 Stars for THE END OF DAY!

Descriptive writing and well-defined characters and a story that spans a lifetime... friendship, secrets, redemption. while I was intrigued by the description of the book and even the early acclaim, I will admit that it wasn't my cup of tea - I'm not sure if it was the tone or the pace, but I found I kept getting distracted and I skimmed. I didn't connect to anyone or really care about them in the least. That being said, the author does bring life to his words - I could see, I could smell, I was in the moment... but as a whole, it didn't resonate with me, unfortunately.

4.5 stars
The End of the Day is a complex story of five people spanning multiple decades, weaving them together a bit more with each passing chapter while jumping back and forth through time.
While I found it a bit slow and confusing at many parts, I really enjoyed this book. The author's style is as smooth as velvet and makes me want to curl up in it like a soft comfy blanket. He gives the characters such a unique depth and presence that I felt at times like I was watching a movie instead of reading a novel.

I loved this author’s last book so I was excited to read this one, only to discover that it just didn’t work for me. Too many POV with characters I didn’t like and didn’t care about. I did a great deal of rereading due to difficulties following the character lines - for me it didn’t flow and seemed almost messy. A little twist at the end, but by that time I really wasn’t interested. There were some passages that would grab my attention in a good way, but not enough to make me recommend this book to friends.

Thank you to Gallery Press and NetGalley for the ARC ebook.

I found Bill Clegg's first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, moving, and looked forward to the opportunity to read The End of the Day. The author tells a domestic drama of friendships and family in a way that I enjoyed - several characters and storylines intersecting, while the reader wonders how they will all come together. There are secrets in the past of all of the characters, secrets they have kept and that have been kept from them. The consequences of these subterfuges have lifelong effects, even if some of them seemed to be inconsequential at the time. Don't let the brilliant bursts on the cover that look like fireworks fool you because there is really sadness and ruined lives contained within, but it is still a compelling story.

Thank you to Gallery and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book.

It’s taken me 14 days and I never got into this book. In the beginning just when I started liking a character the book switched to another character that had unknown connections with each other. Although I liked reading the characters I wasn’t interested in what happened next. I just wanted to finish the book so I could get the review done and move on to the next read.

I have not read this author before so I don’t know that I would like his other works or not but I must assume he is good or he wouldn’t have made it past the front desk.

This book went back and forth in time. Usually I enjoy reading books like that but this time I had a very difficult time following the story. I couldn’t keep track of the characters and never got a good feel for any of them. The writing was good but the story just didn’t keep my attention; way too confusing. I found the ending lacking, I went back and read it twice and still couldn’t tie it all together. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

As I read this story, I thought, "What a perfect example of literary fiction." This story is extremely character-driven and rather slow-paced when it comes to action. However, the plethora of intricate descriptions of the setting conveyed a strong sense of place. There are quite a number of characters to keep track of, but each of them have an important role in the story that is slowly unveiled.

The book shifts between the perspectives of a number of important characters, each one explaining the momentous moments in their past that shaped the course of their lives. As the narrative progresses, the connections between the people and the events are revealed, and the motives and reasoning become much clearer. The characters were relatable, but did not make a huge impact on me. Their individual developments over time were conveyed in a very realistic manner.

This book is well-written, with descriptive but not overly flowery language. Although there were slower sections of the book, the overall reading experience is a pleasant one.

Bill Clegg bases <i>The End of the Day</i> on triads: three girls, three families, three backgrounds and classes, and three generations. The three girls: Dana, rich and often manipulative; Jackie, tenuously connected to the middle class, often pathetic; and Lupita, immigrant Latinx working class, resilient, and ultimately noble. The three are intertwined as children and as teens, in ways that they know and in ways that they don’t know. In <i>The End of the Day</i>, the three look back to their childhoods from about fifty years out, unhappily rediscovering their connections and sometimes discovering their own histories.

<i>The End of the Day</i> is intricately plotted, sometimes too intricately for this reader, and usually fluidly written. Clegg sometimes skillfully evokes time, place, and class experiences, even on small points: he nails the class and religious sorting of colleges and college aspirations in 1950s and 1960s New England. To Clegg’s credit, he doesn’t try to explain away or excuse his characters and doesn’t strive for making them likeable. Clegg portrays some relationships affectingly, such as his touching portrayal of Mo and Alice. Fans of Clegg’s <i>Did You Ever Have a Family</i> will likely cheer the release of <i>The End of the Day</i>.

3.5 stars

This novel has an intriguing premise, but the characters just didn't pull me into the narrative. About 25% into the novel, I, stopped reading.

This book was good and written well... but 26% of the way through it I couldn’t get into it so I’m going to submit my review now. No issues with the writing.m just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Probably 4.5 stars. I enjoyed this book despite the fact that it was told in a non-linear fashion from many points of view. It's hard to really sum up other than to say that one decision echoes for fifty years into the future. At first the stories seems like they won't intersect, but of course they do.

Hap is dealing with his father's death and reminiscing about his life and especially his stepfather, to whom he never really warmed. His mother is taking care of his newborn while he is trying to make sense of his life.

Hap's mother, Alice, was a girl on scholarship at Bryn Mawr who makes an important connection with her patroness, Lee, who forever changes her life.

Dana is a wealthy woman, who knows secrets she intends to reveal to her childhood best from, a woman she hasn't spoken to in decades.

Jackie is a widow living a small life who seems to be under her daughter's control.

Lupita once worked for Dana's parents and is reminiscing about her life on the east coast after relocating to Hawaii.

I didn't like this book as much as his first novel, Have You Ever Had a Family, but to be fair, I think that novel was mostly told in a linear fashion, although I think it might have been told in flashbacks.

Great book! I wasn’t a fan of the number of characters going back and forth in the book. But In the midst of covid-19 this book helped me escape from it! Great read if you don’t mind flashbacks from past to present. And if you enjoy many characters in one book!

I read for enjoyment. Reading this book was entirely too much work. I found very little pleasure here. So many characters and the constant flipping back and forth between them (and time periods) was very distracting for me. I couldn’t just read. I had to actually study in order to keep up with what was going on. I felt that there was too much useless backstory that had no relevance to the book. The ending....well, I’ve read the ending twice and I’m still not sure exactly what happened.

Such an addictive novel! The End of the Day is an emotional read that will definitely stay with me! Bill Clegg does a fantastic job with creating a storyline that was intricately spun with well developed characters— so, so good! I initially was a little confused as to how certain storylines or characters were related, but Bill Clegg took everything full circle with situations and outcomes I never saw coming—love that! I have never read Bill Clegg prior and honestly I am completely wow’ed by his writing style and will be definitely be checking out his previous released novels! The End of the Day is solid 5 star book that would make a perfect book club selection! Highly recommend!