Why are we so resistant to asking others for help? Even when we are desperate.? Jesse, is dealing with her very colicky baby named Betsey. The colic has gone on for months. A mother should be able to calm their baby. Right? That’s what Jesse believed a good mother could do. Jesse, with two other children beside Betsey has been at wits end. She has a absent husband who works long hours and is never around to help. Jesse feels lost and alone, but never asks anyone for help. Betsey ends up with a head injury and is taken to the hospital hours after it happens. Why does it take so long to get Betsey help and who is to blame for her injury? The answers will slowly be revealed and kept me riveted. I highly recommend this book!

This was a quick read for me; better than The Need in examining the strains of motherhood (w/o that other weird conceit it had) and it will probably go through a few rounds of editing to tighten up some of the narrative and timeline before it's published but the bones of a well executed and engaging story are there. Parts of it were upsetting to read (And that emotion is what the author is going for) and the final reveal made me so angry but somewhat relieved but I'll leave that to everyone else to get to. But books like this also remind me to say: mom or not, make sure you're looking out for your friends, checking in and sending love. Everyone has their struggles, we all just have different types of struggles and I think the author did a good job with the trickiness of such a situation.

With the requisite twists and turns, the author takes the reader through what happens when a baby is injured and the story of how it happened is unclear. The characters are vivid and ring true and if you are a parent--a mother in particular--you'll be glued to the book until the last page, which I will say is not the ending I was expecting.

Lastly, I would like to thank NetGalley for a copy of the “Little Disasters” ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A superbly poignant novel around the complexities of family, motherhood and friendships. It drew me in even though I am not a mother and have never experienced post partum depression. But there are so many layers to the plot that you don't have to be a mother – or even a women – to relate. Anyone who loves psychological thrillers and domestic noir will love this book!

This one had me hooked from the beginning! I enjoyed the story and the story shows some of the real raw aspects of being a parent and what that entails. Liz is a pediatric doctor, she is put into a really difficult scenario. Her friends daughter is brought into the AE with a possible head trauma. When Liz starts to question the how of the story she is left with a terrible situation of notifying social services or trusting her friend about what had happened.
This is a great novel and the suspense peels off in layers it's very gripping and has your heart in your throat as things come about and when the truth is found out! I definitely recommend and this is one that you will want to read in one afternoon!

I read this a month ago and figured I should write a quick review before I forget to. The overall plot of the book was actually hard to read. As someone without kids, I don't really know how bad postpartum really is. I honestly remember guessing the ending pretty early on and that it was a good book, but I think lacked a bit of oomph. This is obviously being written during the pandemic going on, and I am needing books that really will do a good job at making me not stress about what's going on outside. This book had the possibility but, just missed it in the end.

This is an emotionally poignant novel that centers around the complexities of motherhood.
Jess is the mother of three, with her youngest being 10 months old. Since her daughter's birth, Jess has struggled with some postpartum depression and is feeling overwhelmed. When her daughter sustains a head injury and is taken to the ER, her parenting skills come into question. Social Services is called and Jess suddenly feels like everybody is against her: Her husband, her longtime friend Liz, and even her children. Because of this, her fragile mental state begins to deteriorate further. But the big question is, did Jess in fact intentionally cause harm to her daughter?

Told from the perspectives of both Jess and Liz, we get a glimpse into their troubled childhoods and gain a deeper understanding of these characters and their motives. I had so much empathy for these characters and found them to be so relatable in their realism. The characterization was so beautifully done, it made for an emotional and heart wrenching read.

In addition to the great writing and wonderful characterization, this is a story shrouded in mystery. There are so many layers to the plot and everything comes together in such a dynamic way.
This is the first book I've read by Sarah Vaughan, and I'm so impressed with the amount of depth.
Strongly recommend for lovers of psychological thrillers and domestic noir.

Whoaaaaaaaa!! What a Book, the characters felt so real to me. It made you think about women’s friendships, about being attuned in your relationships and about putting guilt on people. Wonderful writing, disturbing mixed with sadness at times. Little Disasters will stick in my mind for a long time. Thank you Net Galley and Atria Books for an early copy of this.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley for a copy of the “Little Disasters” ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Little Disasters is shelved under “Mysteries and Thrillers” although I don’t quite know if I would consider this book that genre. Honestly, I thought the book was great-but let it be known that it should come with a huge trigger warning. I read the book relatively quickly while holding my two month old baby and I cried at the child abuse fantasies. I’m not a crier. 4 out of 5 stars.

This one is unusual...it is character driven, and the reader gets to know the characters well. The one thing I would suggest is that the story center around fewer characters...hard to keep track of.

Decent read, but definitely not a book for everyone. It dealt heavily with themes of parenthood and mental illness and, not being a parent myself, I feel like a lot of the motivations and emotions just didn't connect with me. If that is what you want, then it is a quick, interesting read with a decent amount of drama and mystery. My only critique of the writing itself would be that it felt like it lacked a little focus and added more than a few unnecessary names and details.

First I want to thank netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Little Disasters is about a group of friends that met with their first pregnancy. The book mainly follows Jess and Liz, Jess being a stay at home mom of 3 and Liz a pediatric doctor with 2 kids.

One night Jess brings her daughter in to the ED and everything unfolds. Social services gets involved and throughout that you hear about Jess and Liz and their up bringing . It’s a good book I felt like it wAs more drama then mystery bit over all good book.

Opens your mind to PPD and OCD. My heart went out to Jess I understood some of her fears as a parent not to the extreme she had but I felt it.

NOT SWEPT AWAY
While this book is written in a way that every creative writing professor would praise, I didn't enjoy it one bit. I found the style overwrought and dull. As someone with a two-year-old in my family, I thought this book would resonate with me, but it fell flat. The characters, the story, and the writing itself did nothing for me, and I struggled to read past the very first pages, those pages that were supposed to sweep me away. Many sentences were so pretentious and tried so hard to "show" rather than "tell" that they were downright comical. If you are looking for books with detailed descriptions of the sounds of a washing machine and other mundane happenings elevated to great importance (without a trace of humor), you might enjoy this book more than I did. It is a matter of sensibility and taste.

This is an honest review in exchange for a free copy of the book from NetGalley and the publisher.

I enjoyed this book. It centers around Liz, a pediatric doctor, and her close friend Jess, who brings her 10-month old daughter to the hospital one night with a story that causes Liz concern. From there, you get a story of friendship and also mental instability as you uncover what really happened and what is going on in the lives of both women. The book goes back and forth between Liz's and Jess's POV, which led to a fast pace.

As others had said, I don't know that I would refer to this book as a thriller. It was a mystery for sure, and maybe a little bit of a domestic suspense, but didn't scream "thriller" to me. The author does a great job of getting into the heads of characters in a way that we can empathize with them even if we don't agree with what they are doing. I also feel that books don't delve into postpartum depression frequently and I liked that the author was willing to go there and shine a light on this very real issue that many do not understand. The end was a surprise, and was interesting to me, though things did feel like they were tied up a little too neatly.

One minor nit is that each chapter of the book started with a date, and those dates jumped around from past to present quite frequently. I found myself having to do the math on how long ago each chapter took place, and think it would have been more effective to label the chapters something like "2 years before" and "5 years before" rather than the actual dates.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to those who enjoy the mystery/domestic suspense genres. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan was a heart wrenching, compelling read. Liz, and ER physician, is forced to alert social services with her close friend, Jess, brings her baby in with a skull fracture. Jess' behavior is strange, and Liz is shaken by Jess' answers and reactions when questioned. As this story alternates POV, the reader sees into Jess' mind from when she is pregnant with her third child, up until the incident. Vaughan also writes from Liz's POV, which describes how she interpreted the scene and her reasoning for it. The entire story, it is never clear how the baby is hurt, until the very end.

This book was well written, and the multiple POV makes it easy to empathize with each Jess and Liz. I found Jess to be very complex and interesting. I wish there was a slight bit more complexity to Liz, but she is a very likable character. There are themes of child abuse in this book, but nothing graphic. I would recommend this for those who like thrillers, with more of an emotional side as well. Thanks for the chance to read and review!

Little Disasters by @svaughanauthor was such a great book! It was an up all night read for me! It will be available August 18, 2020 and should be on your #tbr. The story had some great plot twists, each time I thought I’d figured it out, there was more! The writing style was well paced, the characters were well developed. Synopsis: A pediatrician is shocked when a good friend shows up in the emergency room with her injured infant. The doctor is then faced with the moral & ethical dilemmas that go with treating a child she knows that presents with a suspicious injury. Overall a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me!

This was a very well-written book about that covers a very difficult topic/story. There were a lot of moments while reading that I felt uncomfortable or sick to my stomach, but I kept going - and am glad that I did.

Liz works as a pediatrician at a hospital and is called to the ER to see a young child - who turns out to be the child of one of her friends, and may have been abused. I was pleased with how Liz handled the situation; from the book blurb I almost expected her to cover the situation up. No spoilers, but I did feel that the portrayal of what happened, from the investigation to the treatment of Betsy in the hospital, was highly accurate.

The resolution of the story was not at all what I expected, with lots of twists and turns all the way to the end. I was pleased with the conclusion and felt that it was the best possible end to this difficult story.

Most unpredictable ending. Great book exposing manipulation and hidden secrets. Couldn't quit reading until the bitter end.

While this novel is a page-turner it would be a disservice to call it a thriller because it is so much more than that. Just like in her previous novel, Anatomy of a Scandal, Vaughan peels back the layers of a disaster so awful and distant in many ways, yet one we all are likely just one or two people removed from, at most.

Mental illness, postpartum depression, malice, accusations of the worst kind, and how a family can spiral out of control by an accumulation of innocuous-seeming decisions.

I like Sarah Vaughan's spare yet precise way of showing us her characters and her achingly compassionate depiction of children. She lets us explore the unfolding events from a variety of characters' perspectives and this allows the reader to get a ton of story without too many words.

Depth, emotion, nuance, compassion. This novel has it all.

Thank you, #netgalley for the e-review copy of this book.

I thought this book was written very well. it left the chapters open ended at the right time and then switched over to the other persons point of view. I was a little disappointed in the "twist" at the end because I feel we have seen it before. Other than that, you feel for these characters and you want them to succeed. You are in constant question of who did this to the baby!