As this group of women allow one man to be the center of their lives, the story will unwind until he must face the damage he has done to all of them.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday (publisher) for granting me early access to an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I gave this book 3.5 stars.

This is a contemporary that follows Circus Palmer, a jazz musician who treats women as objects and is too scared to commit to anyone or anything. His daughter will suffer for it, but life will also force him to learn and love.

CW: Sexual content, abandonment, child neglect, infidelity, alcoholism, pregnancy, toxic relationships, emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental illness, cursing, blood, injury detail, gun violence, grief, adult/minor relationship, body shaming, misogyny, racism, sexism, eating disorder, paedophilia, suicide attempt.

I loved the relationship some characters had with their instruments and with music in general, but felt this book means to tell readers musicians must be genii to succeed on the field, that male musicians are mainly promiscuous and scared of committment, with may be true for some people, but not the standard. I know because I am a musician myself and I have enough colleagues to have understood those stereotypes do us no good.

Koko, Circus's daughter, deeply suffers her father's neglect and inability to love, which even shows in her life/love choices from an early age. As a psychologist, I believe it is essential for this book to portray the consequences our actions and not working on our mental health has on the children around us.

Bakc to topic, I enjoyed the writing style because the book was easy to read, but sometimes it felt a bit simplistic, which made me have the constant feeling that there was something missing. However, this is not the author's problem because that's my own taste and doesn't make the book better or worse.

As long as you're aware of the trigger/content warnings, I'd say this is a good black fiction book to read, especially if you like music and mental health.

This one just wasn't for me. I struggled to connect to the short story type storytelling and I didn't connect with any of the characters (or like them). The daughter felt silly and non-developed, as if sex was the only thing that should or could matter. I wish I'd liked this one more.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Intriguing story about complicate and messy characters that often make the wrong choice before they realize it. Highly enjoyable.

ARC from publisher via NetGalley but the opinions are my own.

The writing had a lush and dreamy quality to it that I really enjoyed. The characters an plot, however, felt lacking. I will be looking out for Warrell's next book, however. There's some real potential here.

I loved this book and found it impossible to put it down. From the very beginning, you are drawn into the lives of captivating women vying for the attention of Circus, an aging musician whose narcissism leaves a trail of broken relationships in his pursuit of fame. However, this engaging and uplifting narrative transcends mere romance and heartbreak.

The story amplifies the voices of the women surrounding Circus, presenting a rich and diverse array of characters that resonate with aspects of ourselves or those we know, all navigating the quest for the love they crave. These characters linger in your thoughts long after you’ve turned the final page. The author’s skillful use of dialogue immerses you in the emotional depths of each relationship, unveiling the intricate needs of each richly developed character. This book is truly one-of-a-kind and profoundly moving.

Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm. Pub Date: September 27, 2022. Rating: 2 stars. At the heart of this novel is the story of Circus, a jazz musician. He is a complex man, has many layers and this novel explores his relationship with his daughter, relationships with multiple women as well as his relationship to music and how to stay relevant as a musician. It was difficult to pinpoint what exactly the storyline of this novel was because of all the dynamics and layers with multiple characters. I think the most enjoyable aspect of this novel was the jazz references. I found it hard to actually have empathy for Circus throughout the novel and could not connect with him. Thanks to #netgalley and #knopfdoubledaypublishing for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I couldn’t connect with this book. Circus Palmer is a womanizer and a terrible father. Maybe the book hit too close to home for me. I had the same type of father. However, my mother was fantastic nothing like Koko’s mother. At 50%, it became a dnf. Ranking it a 3, because anything less would be unfair since I didn’t finish.

Sweet Soft and Plenty Rhythm is follows the life of jazz musician Circus Palmer through the eyes of the women in his life. He's a womanizer and an absent dad to a teenager, Koko, who also is a protagonist. Overall I enjoyed the different POVs and felt that they were well-written. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

The story of Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm weaves in and out among the women in the life of Circus Palmer, a jazz musician who might not be a bad man, but can’t be called a good man, either. Perhaps the best way to describe him is careless. Careless with love, affection, sex, emotion. But by focusing on the women in his life, this book becomes a beautiful, tragic, hopeful, emotional journey that I’m glad I took.

I had a hard time finding something to connect to with this book. A man named Circus who's a terrible partner and an even worse father just wasn't very appealing, but he was a good musician. It's an interesting story for the point of view of the women around this Circus character, but not a story that moved me.

Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell is a literary fiction novel that introduces us to a womanizing jazz musician and the females who cross his path, including his daughter. 

It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer is a 40-year-old trumpet player who takes gigs across the country but doesn’t like to plant roots anywhere. In the first few pages, he learns that Maggie, the woman who enthralls him, is pregnant. He tries to convince her to end the pregnancy; he can’t be rooted down to anything. And she shouldn’t root herself down since she’s a drummer. A child can’t fit into their musician-touring life. Maggie says she wants the baby, and she returns to drumming while Circus heads home to Boston. We meet his 14-year-old daughter Koko who’s trying to navigate high school and control her fluctuating hormones. With Circus back in the picture, Koko still harbors the emptiness she felt for years living without him and living with her regretful, depressed  mother, Circus’ ex-wife Pia.

While Koko and Pia are constants in Circus’ life, the jazzman finds himself constantly attracted to other women. He falls for a twenty-something waitress at a bar where he plays for gigs, for a mysterious woman on the train, for a woman who will do anything for him when he visits her in nearby Providence, Rhode Island. He comes across a woman he wanted to marry years ago while he witnesses the decline of the woman he did marry by the weight of taking care of their daughter and desiring love from him. All these women still don’t make up for losing Maggie and the child she may be carrying. As he wonders about that child, he realizes the need to focus on Koko as his daughter falls for boys who remind him of himself. Though his dream of recording an album still lingers in the background, his womanizing cripples his ability to assume the fame he swears he can taste. 

Unpeeling the layers of the womanizer and the women hurt by the actions make for an absorbing story. It switches between perspectives with the trail of women Circus leaves in his wake. Even meeting the women who spend one night with him show how his carelessness can feel magnitudinous to the women he hurts. Koko detects the pain he is causing other women because her mother lives with the pain on a deeper level. So, the added thread of a teenage daughter hungry for love seeing her father also hungry for love gives the story more depth. And Circus, of course, doesn’t put two and two together about how his actions affect Koko or his career. He thinks his womanizing helps him stay away as a father in case he messes up parenthood and helps him stay creative with his music when a muse disappears. Yet, the dependence on women derails his future, as he lives in a pattern of unfulfilled opportunities.

Overall, the book introduces characters who are intriguing as they sift through their emotions after welcoming Circus or re-welcoming him into their lives. Watching the characters come into their feelings on the pages make the story memorable as if you know the characters. The smoothness of the details about their everyday lives also hops off the page.

First time novelist Laura Warrell’s writing in Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm is superb, but the characters are not. Ms. Warrell’s writing style is engrossing, languishly drifting among characters and events like the melodic music that drives the protagonist forward in life; but the characters, and particularly the main character, aren’t very likable, don’t make good life choices, and don’t have much to commend them. The best that can be said about the main character, a jazz trumpet player, is that he’s honest about his shortcomings and lack of commitment and fidelity, and all the women who love him and expect him to be someone other than who he tells them he is are just downright stupid. Unfortunately, in his youth he thought he could be a regular, family-type man and settle down and have a family, so he made the mistake of getting married and bringing a child into the world. The one made to suffer consequences through no fault of her own, of course, is the innocent child.

In middle age the protagonist learns he is to become a father for the second time, and he does not respond well to the news. That the characters eventually come together and form a semblance of family is a remarkable achievement.

I want to thank Laura Warrell, her publisher Vintage, and NetGalley for providing me an advanced digital copy of Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm to read and allowing me to provide this voluntary review. I’m very interested to see where Ms. Warrell goes next with her writing.

this is less a novel than a series of short stories about a jazz musician & the women around him.

the writing is sad & lovely but it was difficult to embrace characters that make such terrible choices.

Really slow to start but an okay read. Cared much more about the women than the man, he seemed to not want to grow or change at all. I would’ve preferred one of the women as the main characters.

This was a beautiful jazz-filled story that really enveloped me with the sights and sounds throughout. I tend to enjoy faster-paced books though so it took me a long time to get through it, picking the book up and putting it down over months. So, while it’s not binge-worthy, it’s worthy. There are some important lessons here about love, loss and what’s really important in life. It does feel TV-adaptation worthy so I’m waiting to see that happen?

A jazz man out of time and the impact of his philandering. From the description, it would seem that this would focus on the life of Chazz Palmer. A jazz man, a cheater, and a fast talker. The book begins this way as he skips out on another woman. The perspective changes quickly. Instead, we see the women that he has impacted. The women he has cheated on. The women he only sees when he is in town. His daughter, whom he never sees.

I enjoyed the perspective; it was a clever way to tell this story. Most of the women, even his daughter, seem to grow in character development over time. It would seem that nothing would ever catch up to Palmer, but a calamity at the end really puts him in his place and humbles him. It is a really satisfying story of perseverance.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an ARC!
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Unfortunately I DNFed this, it just didn’t catch my attention and maybe I’ll get into it again when I’m in the perfect headspace to give this another try! But I would buy and recommend this for this definitely!

I expected more out of this story. There is nothing wrong with the writing, but overall I didn't love the story. It was good enough.

This wasn't my jam. It was well written and filled with so much passion, but once I hated Circus, I couldn't stop hating Circus as the pages went on. After how thrilling the beginning of the book felt, I was disappointed at how it all turned out.

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