This is a great book and is very difficult to put down. I struggled just a little at the beginning to get a handle on the story, but once it swept me up I was along for the ride. The characters are all so relatable and well drawn, the backstory is heartbreaking as is the current reality, and I thought the commentary on how trauma affects our lives was very poignant. I found Bertie’s relationship with her daughters especially interesting. Really a good read.

The Frequency of Living Things is a well-written tale of family drama, trauma, sacrifice, and forgiveness. Ara, Emma, and Josie are wrapped up in a co-dependent sisterhood, resulting from the early death of the girls’ father and the legal activism of their mother.

While twins Ara and Emma topped the charts with a feminist rock anthem 20 yeas ago, they haven’t put out anything noteworthy since. Araminta struggles with addiction, and Emma disassociates from her anxieties by sleeping around. Neither twin holds a job. Their younger sister, Josie the responsible one, gave up her pursuit of a PhD in entomology to return home to care for them, manage doctor appointments, therapy appointments, pay their rent, and work the merch table at their occasional gigs.

The meat of the story happens when Ara is arrested and jailed for drug charges and their mother, the attorney, won’t leave her activist work to come to her aid. Instead the sisters attempt to raise bail on their own by releasing a new album. Inside the jail, Ara reconnects with one of their mother’s closest friends and leans on her for guidance. Meanwhile, Josie is facing struggles of her own and out of loyalty to her sisters, closes off the one person who wants to help her most.

Like some of the best works of fiction, after our opinions are formed by each of the sisters’ stories, we get Bertie’s, the mother’s, point of view. Lesson: Kids don’t always see the whole picture.

Each chapter in The Frequency of Living Things is told from one of the women’s viewpoint, and while her story was the most traumatic, I found myself enjoying Ara’s chapters the most.

My takeaways from this great novel are:
Families are messy no matter their backstory and sometimes the right ending of a story isn’t the happy one. I CRIED, but it really was the right way to end it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Atria Books for the advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I’m not typically drawn to a sister story but this one grabbed me from chapter 1. The story is told in switching perspectives and I think this really worked in the storytelling, allowing the reader to understand the characters from others POVs as well as their own internal monologue.

My rating also gets bumped up at least a half star because this book is full of Boston music scene references, something I’m quite passionate about! I probably still go to a show in Boston once a month, but in college I was going to shows once or twice a week. Anytime a venue was mentioned, it brought me back to seeing shows there myself and it was so fun to have that connection to a book!

Regardless of a reader’s personal connection to music, or Boston, this book is easy to recommend. I think this book will resonate with readers that enjoy stories that explore complicated relationships between sisters and mothers, a book involving the music industry, or a story about overcoming personal struggles.

The Frequency of Living Things is the second book by Nick Fuller Googins. Although he has written short stories and essays. Most importantly he is an elementary school teacher. The novel is complex with various issues, conflicts and characters.

How many times can you give up something and lose everything for your family? How many times does a trait repeat itself in different generations? How much is everything? Job? Housing? Safety? Guilt? These are just some of the things that Nick Fuller Googins explores in his new book The Frequency of Living Things. The answers are not definitive, black and white. Some people give everything until there is nothing left for themselves, but where is the line?

This book is a character study of sisters. The ties that bind them and hold them. The guilt that some feel for the others. The amount of giving for each of them to the other. I found myself yelling don’t do it. This is not a healthy choice, yet I kept on reading. It was like a slow motion accident happening in front of my eyes…

And then the climax and the resolution came… What an ending.

While I didn’t really *like* any of the three sisters- Emma, Josie, and Ara- I was impressed with the overall storytelling and I really loved their mother and her political alertness. It was refreshing to read about such important topics and conflicts and see a passionate main character, and even though I saw at least one review were someone didn’t like her takes, I thought Bertie was important and powerful. Sure, she seemed selfish, but she’d also BEEN THROUGH IT, and I very much related to/sympathized with her - especially while her daughters floundered as bratty victims.
Sometimes this book felt like a slog, TBH, but the ending was well worth the journey. This was a slow and steady read and really impressive.

THE FREQUENCY OF LIVING THINGS
BY: NICK FULLER GOOGINS

Literary Fiction is my favorite genre because it's character driven which this unique narrative definitely was. It's about an activist single mother who can be proactive taking up International causes, named Bertie. I could see that Bertie didn't leave home in the best of circumstances, which one example she describes as flinging jam at her father, and his reaction being abusive. She isn't a presence in her daughters lives especially when a huge crises occurs, and her youngest daughter Josie drives back to Maine to coax her back to the Boston area (which I'm very familiar with). There are two older twins named Emma, and Ara, who have a band that was nominated for a Grammy Award, but seems to be floundering to which after giving a concert to a small amount of people who attend, Ara is put in prison for drug trafficking. Ara has an addiction to heavy duty drugs, so she's detoxing in jail. That's the reason why Josie, who is the family caretaker went to Maine, since even though the girls are adults they needed their mother, and she didn't see reason. Their father died when the girls were young.

Ari's bail is $100,000.00 and her mother was a lawyer, so she seemed to be completely self-absorbed by ignoring her youngest daughter's pleas to the point of being if not cold, then unconcerned. They had a family home where a home equity loan could have helped bail her daughter out, but Bertie the mother lost the home for not paying Federal income taxes, and the IRS seized it. Ara's lawyer offered her what I thought was a great deal which she declined since she didn't want to implicate the man named Roman who was involved with the drugs. Ara was the creative brains behind their band writing the lyrics, and her twin sister Emma looks in Ara's box of diaries, and journals, and is attempting to raise the bail money by producing a "Jailhouse" new music. Her twin sister Emma goes in her twin sister's name under false identification to a therapist that was supposed to be for Ara.

Josie, the youngest sister visits Ara alone in jail, and when the subject of bail comes up, Ara doesn't want to leave without sending Josie on a mission to bring her jailhouse roommate's three young children to see their mother. Josie was a PhD student that was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and ended up at Stanford which wasn't her first choice. The Fulbright Fellowship program was founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. It has been considered as one of the most prestigious scholarships in the United States. At Stanford she was a participant in Dr Lees lab at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Josie had published two articles after spending three years in Dr. Lee's lab in 'American Myrmecologist. Myrmecology is the branch of entomology that deals with ants. There's quite a bit of discourse from Josie in which she narrates how sister ants play a significant role in ant colonies. Just like this novel's heavy emphasis on sisters did not escape my attention. She has a falling out with Dr. Lee about her dissertation, and gets in an accident which leads to her suspension.

"Every ant and butterfly and Lizard in the World knew it. For the survival of the
family--the colony, the species, the genome--what won't an organism do?"

Publication Date: August 12, 2025

Thank you to Net Galley, Nick Fuller Googins, and Atria Books for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own, as always.

#TheFrequencyofLivingThings #NickFullerGoogins #AtriaBooks #NetGalleTHE FREQUENCY OF LIVING THINGS
BY: NICK FULLER GOOGINS

Literary Fiction is my favorite genre because it's character driven which this unique narrative definitely was. It's about an activist single mother who can be proactive taking up International causes, named Bertie. I could see that Bertie didn't leave home in the best of circumstances, which one example she describes as flinging jam at her father, and his reaction being abusive. She isn't a presence in her daughters lives especially when a huge crises occurs, and her youngest daughter Josie drives back to Maine to coax her back to the Boston area (which I'm very familiar with). There are two older twins named Emma, and Ara, who have a band that was nominated for a Grammy Award, but seems to be floundering to which after giving a concert to a small amount of people who attend, Ara is put in prison for drug trafficking. Ara has an addiction to heavy duty drugs, so she's detoxing in jail. That's the reason why Josie, who is the family caretaker went to Maine, since even though the girls are adults they needed their mother, and she didn't see reason. Their father died when the girls were young.

Ari's bail is $100,000.00 and her mother was a lawyer, so she seemed to be completely self-absorbed by ignoring her youngest daughter's pleas to the point of being if not cold, then unconcerned. They had a family home where a home equity loan could have helped bail her daughter out, but Bertie the mother lost the home for not paying Federal income taxes, and the IRS seized it. Ara's lawyer offered her what I thought was a great deal which she declined since she didn't want to implicate the man named Roman who was involved with the drugs. Ara was the creative brains behind their band writing the lyrics, and her twin sister Emma looks in Ara's box of diaries, and journals, and is attempting to raise the bail money by producing a "Jailhouse" new music. Her twin sister Emma goes in her twin sister's name under false identification to a therapist that was supposed to be for Ara.

Josie, the youngest sister visits Ara alone in jail, and when the subject of bail comes up, Ara doesn't want to leave without sending Josie on a mission to bring her jailhouse roommate's three young children to see their mother. Josie was a PhD student that was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and ended up at Stanford which wasn't her first choice. The Fulbright Fellowship program was founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. It has been considered as one of the most prestigious scholarships in the United States. At Stanford she was a participant in Dr Lees lab at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Josie had published two articles after spending three years in Dr. Lee's lab in 'American Myrmecologist. Myrmecology is the branch of entomology that deals with ants. There's quite a bit of discourse from Josie in which she narrates how sister ants play a significant role in ant colonies. Just like this novel's heavy emphasis on sisters did not escape my attention. She has a falling out with Dr. Lee about her dissertation, and gets in an accident which leads to her suspension.

"Every ant and butterfly and Lizard in the World knew it. For the survival of the
family--the colony, the species, the genome--what won't an organism do?"

Publication Date: August 12, 2025

Thank you to Net Galley, Nick Fuller Googins, and Atria Books for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own, as always.

#TheFrequencyofLivingThings #NickFullerGoogins #AtriaBooks #NetGalle

The Frequency of Living Things is a classic example of a book that is good, and didn’t need to be so long. The mother was infuriating, and I get that the sisters all had such different personalities and lives, but do we need so many examples of it. To me it felt like a run on book. Some parts I ate up quickly, where other parts were so slow that I was ready for the book to end, Overall, a good example of family, sisterhood, and forgiveness being just as important as acceptance.

I was drawn in by the premise — a story of three sisters and their mother, grappling with strained relationships, addiction, and the weight of family history. The opening, especially Josie’s voice with her scientific “observations,” hooked me right away.

But by 40%, I felt like I was trudging through molasses. The alternating POVs slowed the pacing to a crawl, and even Josie’s chapters — initially my favorite — began to lose momentum. The themes are compelling on paper, but in execution it felt repetitive and overly drawn out.

This is a case where the writing isn’t bad, but it didn’t hold my interest. I decided to set it aside at 40%. I think readers with more patience for a very slow burn might connect with it, but this one wasn’t for me. Thank you Atria for the free ebook to review.

The Frequency of Living Things is a layered, emotional family saga that digs deep into the messy bonds of sisterhood and the heavy weight of history. Nick Fuller Googins captures both the chaos and the beauty of a family that can’t quite live with—or without—one another.

Josie, the pragmatic youngest sister, feels the burden of responsibility; Emma, the fading rock star, clings to her past while enabling her twin; and Ara, raw and fragile, is perhaps strongest when everyone assumes she’s weakest. Their mother, Bertie, adds another dimension with her complicated love and absence, showing how parental choices ripple across generations. Each perspective adds tension and heart, making the story both intimate and expansive.

The novel excels in portraying addiction, guilt, and sacrifice with nuance and compassion, while also celebrating the resilience and loyalty that can only come from family. At times, the narrative’s scope and multiple voices can feel heavy, slowing the momentum, but the emotional payoff is worth it.

Heartbreaking, hopeful, and resonant, The Frequency of Living Things is an American epic about love, pain, and the frequencies that keep pulling us back to one another—whether we’re ready or not.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. The multi-perspective narration worked especially well, allowing the story to unfold from different angles and giving depth to the characters’ experiences. I also appreciated the way Googins wove together themes of science and family. Those connections gave the book a unique richness and grounded the emotional weight of the story.

While it was certainly a sad book at times, there was an undercurrent of resilience and care that carried the narrative, leaving me with a sense of hope by the end. Thoughtful, moving, and tender, The Frequency of Living Things struck a beautiful balance between sorrow and possibility.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the free e=ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a good character driven domestic drama. The characters are well developed and distinctly written. There are strong themes of co-dependency and the impact of addiction on relationships. But, I found the pacing to be too slow and the middle dragged a bit. At times I found the story repetitive and the complicated scientific language was hard to follow. I just was not invested in the story.

3 stars.

I could not finish this book. The co-dependent relationships between the sisters was a trigger. Having first hand knowledge of trying to help people with addictions, I find that unless people want help, it really is pointless. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC. I have given the book 3 stars, which I deduced by giving 1 star for my dislike of the book and giving 5 stars because the author took on a tough subject. I will not be posting this review.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster | Atria Books for gifting me a physical and digital ARC of the latest book by Nick Fuller Googins, author of The Great Transition, which I loved. All opinions expressed in this review are my own - 4.5 stars rounded up!

Four women - Bertie, the single mom of twins, Ara and Emma, and youngest daughter, Josie. Emma and Ara found short-lived fame as the band Jojo and the Twins, but Ara's addictions put an end to that. While Josie is the youngest, she's the one who takes care of everyone and everything while still trying to have her career as a scientist. When Ara lands in jail, she must finally face her demons and her family.

Just what will or won't we do for the survival of our family? I got pulled into this story right away about the messy lives of these siblings, and their absent mom. The story goes back in time to learn more about Bertie and her passion for social justice that left her to basically neglect her girls. The sibling dynamic felt so realistic, even though all families are different in their own ways. I liked the scientific aspects of Josie's work, and thought the Butterfly & Reptile World was a fascinating place. But it's the emotional pull between all the characters that makes this book a winner.

The Frequency of Living Things by Nick Fuller Googins is a well written story that kept me hooked from the very beginning.
The characters draw you in and keeps you flipping the pages.
They are realistic and very well developed.
I really enjoyed the writing style. I found myself hooked, turning the pages.

Thank You NetGalley and Atria Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

A heartbreaking American epic about three sisters who unearth lifetimes of family tensions as they are forced to rescue one of their own from peril, testing the limits of sacrifice, sisterhood, and forgiveness. Josie is the practical sister and scientist while her sisters are only cued into their music and forget everything else like paying the rent. Emma and Ara are the twins who Josie manages. Then there is Bertie, their mother, and how she has influenced their lives, both good and bad. It was a book that draws you in to the story to see what is going to happen next, and I could not put it down. This author developed this characters to the point that when a twist in the plot came, I was totally surprised! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for introducing me yet again to a new author that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Quick Monday review of a book coming out soon by the author of one of my all-time favorite books!

👍🏻What Worked For Me -

Fuller Googins is great at capturing complex family dynamics. I loved the exploration of codependency and of how addiction impacts relationships. I loved how distinct and nuanced all the characters were. And I really enjoyed (though that might not be quite the right word) the ending because I was genuinely shocked by the direction it went.

👎🏻What Didn’t Work For Me -

I didn’t love the writing styles used in this book. The prose changed in the each POV, which was great for keeping them separated, but I only really enjoyed reading one of them. I also felt like the pacing was a bit unbalanced, and the middle of the book was fairly slow

I still liked this overall though, and if you like character driven stories about families, I’d definitely recommend checking it out!

Thank you to Atria and Netgalley for this ARC. The Frequency of Living Things is out tomorrow!

3.5/5 stars

THE FREQUENCY OF LIVING THINGS by Nick Fuller Googins is a heart-wrenching and emotional story of family, sisters, sacrifice and forgiveness that kept me engaged from beginning to end. It is a story of three sisters, Emma, Araminta (Ara) and Josie, who are forced to examine their intertwined lives and relationships when one sister is in peril. Twins Emma and Ara made it big with the success of their first – and only – hit album decades earlier. As they try to make a comeback, Ara is arrested and put in jail to detox from her long-time opioid addiction. Youngest sister, Josie, has always been the one to care for everyone while their absent activist mother, Bertie, is off saving those she thinks are in more need than her own daughters. At the risk of her job and sanity, Josie jumps into action to spring Ara from prison. Each sister will have to decide what they want in life and how far they will go to protect each other. This is a moving story of three sisters faced with family trauma and how they each cope. Although some of the themes such as grief, trauma, rape, co-dependency and substance abuse were difficult to read about, the story felt authentic and even hopeful. I enjoyed this book and thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

The Frequency of Living Things by Nick Fuller Googins is about a family - a very dysfunctional family.
"Emma and Ara had a band - JoJo and the Twins and a Grammy nominated album. But the music has dried up. Nothing they write is good enough for Emma. Ara yoyos between addiction and recovery and a very bad decision had landed her in jail. Josie does her best to keep their bills and rent up-to-date. Mom is off saving the world - everyone but them."

This story rotates among the different POVs of the sisters and the mother. They all have issues. Josie has control issues because she doesn't think her sisters can make it without her help. And she's willing to walk away from other relationships to take care of her sisters (in her mind) Ara seems to be the sanest one, even though she fights addiction and is in jail. Emma is a perfectionist (in her mind) and a little detached from reality. Even with all of the problems, Googins still makes you care about this messed-up family.

This book explores what it means to take care of your family, even if you need to do a little kidnapping (still can't believe that one) Tough ending but one with some hope.

A family of women. Josie, the youngest sister, has been and continues to be the organized caretaker of her twin sisters Emma and Ara whose band JoJo and the Twins can now be seen as a one hit wonder. Josie gave up her career when things went off the rails for them, when Ara needed rehab and their mother Bertie lost her law license. Now things are upside down again because Ara is in jail. This moves around in time to tell the story of the three sisters and of their mother, a crusader for social justice who pretty much neglected her daughters. And then there's Dean, who has always been there with the sisters because his own mother turned herself in and is in prison for what she did. He's more than a friend to Josie, even if she doesn't want to acknowledge it. These four women live messy lives. Music links Emma and Ara but can it save them? This is emotional. It's also topical. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. An excellent read.

Having read and enjoyed The Great Migration, I looked forward to reading Nick Fuller Googins' new book, The Frequency of Living Things. These two books are very different, and sadly, I did not care for this novel as much.
The story is about three sisters and their mother and is told from the points of view of all four main characters, each demonstrating the complexity of family relationships. Googins does a good job of portraying drug and alcohol addiction, and the effect not only on the individual but also on the family.
Unfortunately, this book was a miss for me. For the most part, the pace was slow, and I found myself reaching for a different book to read. I did not find any of the characters likable; their attitudes and behaviors grated on my nerves. While I enjoyed Bertie’s back story the most of all the characters, and I liked reading about her activism in the past, I did not care for the story when it turned to modern-day politics, which I realize is a matter of personal reading preference. Since the news is everywhere in real life, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, and I often turn to books for a reprieve from current events. Still, I think if you enjoy a slower-paced family drama, this might be a good book to pick up.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!