Thank you Net Galley for the ARC. Such a lovely book about life and it’s up and downs. Characters are very relatable. Marriage and life itself is not easy, and this book will take you along for the ride.

Pete and Jackie are around age seventy when this novel begins. Pete has just published his first novel and they’re about to attend his reading at a bookstore. While he’s looking ahead, Jackie has just had a bad cancer diagnosis. We get a snapshot of their present-day life before an incident at the reading flings us back to their youth, and this is where half the story occurs before returning to the present. In the flashback, we see them dating in high school, destined for marriage until one tragic night in which Pete considers taking a different course. Eventually, he goes back to Jackie, a woman who doesn’t share his intellectual or literary gifts, but is beautiful and smart and sturdy. The last part of the story is where they reckon with having spent their lives with the wrong person.

It’s an interesting premise. The writing is beautiful, with rich description and metaphor (e.g. Pete’s lifelong interest in the doomed General Custer.) Although there were some problems with the story (most of the women played the same wry, domineering role; most of the characters’ dialogue followed the same terse pattern), it was an interesting depiction of the way we can fall into an important decision and spend our whole life dealing with the results.

Many thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to preview this book.

This is a bittersweet love story between Pete and Jackie and how they have evolved from young love to adulthood. They may have been staunch supporters of each other but with respect to love, there was something that was sadly lost. They were confronted with illness but Pete seemed to mourn more about Corinna than what was happening with Jackie. Sweetest days seems to refer to the past and what they had rather than what they had together in the present.

Having been married for 20 years myself this book brought forth many thoughts and feelings. Heartache, acceptance, love, deception, honesty, and death are a few topics this riveting book explores. The book is well written and tugs at the heart strings.

The Sweetest Days is an apt title for this bittersweet story. This story of Pete Hatch and his wife, Jackie, transcends the small things that can drive marriages apart by reminding us of the infinite things that can keep them together. The story is told in multiple time periods, and traces the romantic, idealistic hopes of Pete, who wishes for a Pulitzer, and of Jackie, who just wishes to survive a very gloomy cancer diagnosis. Please note - that is NOT a spoiler as that information is revealed in the opening pages.

This book is an often raw but always honest look at things partners choose to keep from each other, and the disastrous fallout when those secrets are inevitably revealed. Heartbreaking at times as well as infuriating, this well-written story with very relatable characters will stick with me for a long time.

A final note: There is a lot of narrative that is the characters either thinking to themselves or directly talking to the reader. At first I found this off-putting but as I read on, I came to admire this literary device. However, if a book with lots of dialogue is what appeals to you, this book might not be for you. I got used to it and believe it was an excellent way to tell this story.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

Sweet sweet book. Loved every page. Liked that the characters were a bit older, and real.

Thanks to author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

I know there was a great deal to like in this book, but I didn’t connect to it at all. I found it mawkish and depressing. This was too sad, too much about missteps and the sadness when faced with a serious illness. This was a story of the end days of Jackie and Pete, recalling years past.

Pete is a success, having written a promising book, but his return to his hometown to give a reading sets into motion a recollection of times past and mistakes made. When a former classmate shows up at the reading, he becomes a catalyst for recriminations and regrets

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

John Hough Jr. comes from generations of journalists, his spare style echoing that fine métier. He draws us quietly, assuredly, into the troubled intimacy of a long wed couple, Pete and Jackie. Thrown by her cancer diagnosis, they’re also shaken when a past high school mate shows up at Pete’s debut book signing.

The author deftly reveals the poignant impact, as they struggle with secrets, raw feelings, disease, and an empty nest — a once happy marriage challenged now to its core. It feels as if the two are our best couple friends, and we agonize as they decide, “Will we stay together?” Elegant and heartrending, THE SWEETEST DAYS will keep you rapt ‘til the end.

5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 22 Jun 2021
#TheSweetestDays #NetGalley

Thanks to the author, Gallery Books, and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine.