Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, Picador, and the author Kyra Wilder for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

The author puts the readers straight into the mind of the main character, and for me, this truly put me on edge throughout the whole book. This is a book that gives the readers a first class seat to one woman's decline into depression and psychological madness.

This book was uncomfortable to read, however it was a great read, and I truly recommend that you add this one to your TBR list and read it at your first opportunity.

Little Bandaged Days follows Erika, mother of two, moving to Geneva, Switzerland with her husband.

The books takes a rather strange construct, with Erika identifying and interacting with other people by using their initials - including her children. I suppose this is some kind of experiment about Erika pushing people away, but it got fairly annoying the deeper into the book I made it. These sorts of literary experiments can be done well and give a good payoff at the end, but this book fell short for me.

Erika doesn't know the language, and makes no effort at all to learn it. She allows herself to become more and more isolated from the world in which she finds herself, and while I get it's supposed to be about a woman slowly losing her grasp on her own mental health, I just can't feel terribly sorry for anyone who knows they need to change x in their lives in order to have a better life, but makes zero effort to change anything at all to get to that betterment, or at least make progress on it.

This popped up for me in the mystery/thriller category, but it's clearly a general/womens' fiction novel. It reads as if someone stepped up for a dare of writing about a woman spiraling into mental illness with the extra challenge of not naming names.

I did not like the ending, which I will not spoil, and this really sums up my review of this book: didn't like it. Clearly, it was not for me. Sorry.

Two stars out of five.

Thanks to Abrams and NetGalley for the review copy.

I was excited for the premise of this book, however it left m less than satisfied.
A mother is on the verge of a mental breakdown- if not already in one as her husband works full time and is never home to help.
I loved the idea behind this exploration of mental illness and feeling so overwhelmed but the book just didn't make sense. I finished it quickly because I skimmed over a lot of it.
Overall, I was left feeling empty after reading.

Little Bandaged Days was stunning debut of a novel that had me feeling as if I was spieling losing my mind with the main character. The writing technique that Kyra Wilder used was beyond debut novel status and I felt every bit of dread and apprehension she did.

The book is based on a family, young mother with two children and a husband moving to another country for the husbands job. She is left to her own devices and tries to put up a good front for her husband who seems to never be home. This is an important story of not just mental health but the toll it takes to move to another country without support and without asking for it until it is too late. It was a truly sad and haunting experience that you could feel in your core.

I’ll stop there as I do not want to spoil anything. Happy reading!

Thank you to Netgalley, Abrams, and The Overlook Press for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

2/5 Stars

I had a really hard time with this book, especially because of my profession and background. Little Bandaged Days portrays a woman's struggle with mental health as she's isolated and attempting to raise her children. The story is a bit disjointed, and I wasn't sure if it was a purposeful decision of the author, what really confused me was the constant use of initials. I hope that this book further encourages people to seek mental health treatment when they need it, and encourages friends and family to provide that support when they see a loved one in need.

Very well written novel about a woman losing her mind. The novel is written in such a way as to experience and feel her descent into madness with glimpses of her in a mental institution. You are kept in suspense throughout the novel. I look forward to reading more by this author.

This debut is a slow descent into madness. When M is offered a new job in another country promising great things E does her best best as a wife to make sure all is taken care of. With their little son B and their ever busy daughter E, E tries to make the best of a lonely reality. She wants all things to be prefect and tries so hard but slowly gives into her dark mind. This is a slow build to make you question everything you have read. Thank you net galley for the opportunity to review this book.

A fun trip into hysteria.

Rating: 3/5

Little Bandaged Days is the first book I have written by Kyra Wilder and let me just tell you, it was quite the adventure. The book follows a young mother, with two tiny children, as she battles against what I have to assume is post-partum depression and her husband's extremely busy work schedule. On the surface, it's a little bit of a train wreck. The mother is a fantastically unreliable narrator, and she draws you in in a very Yellow Wallpaper way. It's fantastic, it's crude, it's weird, and it's a crazy experience.

Under the surface, there are a lot of issues that made the story hard to enjoy. For one thing, the weird sections of the book that are in italics impossible to get through. I don't think I actually read any but the first, and even that was hard to do. And another thing, there was no need to refer to all of the members in her family by their first initials only. That simple act took a lot away from the story and made it hard to sympathize with the narrator, which is, arguably, the whole point of the book. Instead, I found myself cringing and hoping DCFS would come and spring her kids from the dark little apartment, and the weird lack of real food they seemed to eat toward the end. And third, her husband is a complete and utter jerk and I spent a good portion of the book wishing he'd get hit by a cyclist.

Overall, I did enjoy getting sucked into the story. I enjoyed the kids, I want better for them, and I think that, with better editing, the book would have been really good.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this review are my own.

I have waited a few days because I just really don’t know what to say about this book. I guess I still don’t. If you like a book that will keep you guessing after you finish then this is for you.
A mother moves with her husband and children to a new country where she does not k ow the language and does not attempt to learn it. Her husband is constantly at work or away for work and only comes home after she had gone to bed and is gone before she wakes. She is left alone with. a baby and a toddler all day every day. She must walk everywhere and has no way to communicate with others. She begins to lose her mind. She starts seeing things and hearing things and barely sleeps.
It was encouraging that the writer portrayed the mental illness which could have been postpartum along with other issues. I was just lost on what really happened and what was real and just her imagination. I kept reading hoping that the author would explain what was really going on but......
I didn’t really like the book but it did leep me reading hoping for more. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this, and I tried multiple times to really get into this book, but I just couldn’t. I really struggle with incorrect grammar or missing/misspelled words- the lack of quotations just did me in. I couldn’t seem to get past it. It made the story very hard for me to keep up with, because I kept thinking about the damn quotations 🤣
Hopefully the publishers will work this out before printing and release, so that others aren’t stopped by the same thing!

This one wasn't at all what I expected. While I appreciate the opportunity to read it, I couldn't get into it. I have decide to set this one down.

A few things I just really didn't like include:
- the narrator's use of initials when referring to her husband
- the lack of quotation marks
- the redundancy

I also feel like the synopsis was very misleading.

The writer really does have a way with words, though. I hope to read more by her in the future. This one just wasn't my cup of tea.

I really appreciate the opportunity to have read and reviewed this book. However, I struggled with the book from the very first page and feel I never did become engaged. It is very rare for me not to finish a book, even if I’m not enjoying it. However I had to put this one aside.

It was hard for me to read this book for several reasons:

1. I couldn’t connect to the characters when the young mother, Erika, address her family members using initials. To my understanding, the author wanted to show how the mother tried to distance herself from them, perhaps, because of her mental instability that moving to another country with all its challenges made it even worse.

2. This book made me feel claustrophobic. I just wanted to finish it as quickly as possible, that’s how bad it made me feel. Was I supposed to feel like that? Possibly, I just picked the worst time to read it.

3. I wasn’t happy with the ending at all. It left me hanging with mixed feelings and a lot of questions.

Overall, even though some parts of the book were written in an interesting language, I won’t be rereading this book anytime soon.

I’m not really sure what to say about this book. I understand the mental health aspect. I was happy to see a book written about it. This book shows the downward spiral a mother can face but I honestly wasn’t a fan of how it was written and the ending left me even more confused.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-copy of Little Bandaged Days!!

Erika and her family decide to move to Geneva for her husbands new job. She does not speak French and makes little attempt to learn how to do, so she becomes completely isolated and alone. The description of the book says she’s ‘falling into madness’, but postpartum depression is likely the answer here. Her husband works all hours and she has zero support system.

This is a well written book. I felt uncomfortable while reading it. It’s hard to believe that this is a first novel. I was always worried about the children and what might happen to them. Her husband doesn’t seem to pay any attention to her at all. She only names her husband and children by their initials, which was a bit hard to get used to.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this ARC In exchange for an honest review. I really struggled with this one. Not so much the actual story, but the writing. There are no quotation marks when someone is reading. First time I’ve ever encountered this and it was sometimes difficult to get thru.

Unique, dark and daring novel about one woman's self-destruction as a new expat in Switzerland.

I was really excited to get my hands on this book because I myself have lived in Switzerland for a few years, so being an expat in this country sounds very personal to me. In addition, one of my favorite books is Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum, which is also about a mother and expat in Switzerland. I'm glad to say that Wilder's new novel is delicious in very similar ways.

In Little Bandaged Days, Erika is having a hard time adjusting to her new life in Geneva with her husband and two little children. She is struggling with finding herself as a wife, mother, but also an expat with a new language, people and culture. She feels trapped and can't sleep at night, which is when the most honest and shocking thoughts come to her conscience.

I absolutely loved Erika's jounrey of self-exploration (not to falsely say self-discovery). Mental health and "losing one's mind" are at the forefront of this novel, all wrapped in absolutely beautiful language. Brutally honest and truly daring, Little Bandaged Days was a delightful read.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchnage for an honest review.

Thank you @NetGalley and @AbramsBooks for a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review!⁣ ⁣
𝗟𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟬𝟰/𝟮𝟬/𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 ⁣
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𝗠𝘆 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝗼𝗽𝘀𝗶𝘀⁣
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Erika is having a hard time adjusting to her new life. Not too long ago she, her husband, and their two small children left their home and moved to Geneva, Switzerland. Her husband's new demanding job means that he's never around, and Erika finds herself isolated in a new country, navigating a new language, and making sure her children are adjusting well.Topics of what it means to be a mother, a wife, and a woman are beautifully written as Erika explores what it means to be each one and how they reconcile with each other, if at all. ⁣
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𝗠𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄⁣
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You know the scene in the Princess and the Frog when Lottie steals the beignet from Big Daddy and he's sitting there and says "What just happened?" ⁣
That's how I feel about this book. I feel like I had something extremely interesting dangled in front of me, but it never came to fruition. ⁣
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I think my first issue is how this was presented on NetGalley in the Mystery & Thrillers genre, but this book is neither. The summary was vague enough to where I thought the mystery aspect would be a surprise, but despite me reading the entire thing there was nothing except watching a woman spiral into a state of mental illness. I just feel like this would be better advertised as a general fiction book instead of trying to fit it in this genre. ⁣
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Despite not having quoted dialogue or full character names, this is beautifully written. Many writers struggle with painting a scene or making sure the reader knows exactly what a character is feeling, but this was done extremely well here. Yet if watching Erika descent into madness is not a good enough hook for the reader, the author risks losing their engagement because there's not much else to look forward to. ⁣
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If you are looking for a book with hope that things get better, this isn't it. But if you want a unique perspective on how someone's psyche can slowly degenerate, this would be your book.⁣

A tense, disturbing read. Erika, a young mother moves with her husband to Geneva where he has accepted a new job. His job is extremely demanding and soon Erika hardly sees him at all, morning or nights. Erikas entire focus is caring for her children, cooking, cleaning, shopping for food, taking them to the park and preparing the perfect dinners that eventually are never eaten. She is completely isolated in a foreign country slowly, maddeningly losing herself, her soul, her mind to the chaotic, aloneness.
This is a disturbing and uncomfortable read in-put-downable story.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my comments

Thank you to ABRAMS and Netgalley for the ARC.

A family moves to Geneva, Switzerland, for the husband’s job. He spends all his time at work while she is charged with taking care of their two young children.

The author assigning initials to her husband and children was a real turnoff and annoyed me right until the end of the book. Names conjure up different kinds of characters and help the reader see their good points and their flaws. I don’t know why the author used initials, but I know I’m not the only reviewer that it bothered.

Erika, the mother, doesn’t speak French, and doesn’t try to make friends or do anything to help herself adjust to this new living situation. Eventually she suffers from insomnia and starts a downward spiral into a nervous breakdown.

This was not a great time to read such a sad, claustrophobic book. It wasn’t entertaining, the narrator didn’t have much in the way of redeeming characteristics, and the ending was unsatisfactory.