This was another very good book by this author. She definitely knows how to make people laugh and even during the most sad circumstances. I would’ve liked a more solid ending however, I think that’s how she likes to leave us… Thinking.

I was eager to read Wreck by Catherine Newman because I loved Sandwich, and I was eager to join Rocky and her quirky family again. I loved this installment almost as much as the first one, and once again, the ride was over way too quickly.

Wreck takes place two years after the events in Sandwich, and Rocky's father and her witty daughter Willa are living with them. The plot is admittedly thin: Rocky is dealing with a puzzling medical issue, and a local train accident touches their lives. But these characters don't need much of a plot; their banter and dry humor are enough to carry the story, which was full of heart. I only wish it had been fleshed out more as a longer book.

Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Fifty-five year old Rachel develops a rash on her skin. She spends her sleepless nights online looking for possible causes. She also is glued to news articles and Facebook comments about a local car and train accident that killed one of her son's former classmates.The plot unfolds to reveal how Rachel's son, Jamie, a successful business professional, is connected to the accident. Much of the plot focuses on how Rachel, her husband, Nick, her ninety-two year old father, and her adult daughter, Maya, work through Rachel's medical appointments and Jamie's connection to the wreck. The plot is intriguing. Many chapters detail Rachel's medical issue and her frustration with the healthcare industry. The ending, however, is abrupt.

Catherine Newman has quickly vaulted to one of my favorite authors. The dialogue? The family dynamics that are real and true? The understanding of human nature? All of it makes Wreck readable and relatable and another brilliant offering from Newman.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. Wreck continues sharing the lives of Rocky and her family that we met in Sandwich. Rocky faces some health issues that are not easily diagnosed or treated. Sharing her home with her widower father brings its own challenges, and of course continuing to parent her adult children through issues large and small are a given. I loved the story, the dialogue was genuine, the emotions real. If you loved Sandwich, you will love Wreck.

Newman has done it again!
Thanks to NetGalley for this advance reader copy in exchange for a review. Opinions stated here are my own.
Wreck is a followup (but standalone) novel to Sandwich - a laugh out loud ride I enjoyed so immensely that I was compelled to email the author to share the love.
Thanks to my urging (well, probably not but it makes me happy to think), Newman is back with the cast of characters from Wreck in another double-talk title and page after page of humor and wit on some serious subjects. The way Newman can make situations seem not-so-hopeless by making the reader smile at the turn of phrase is commendable.
I simply enjoy her writing. Now I am urging her to keep going!
With love, a humble librarian.
4 solid stars...probably 4.25 if I could add more.

I devoured this book in one sitting, no small feat while working full time and with a child, but the story was just so good! And it resonated as an autoimmune sufferer. Rocky is back along with her family and we are immersed in their life outside of the summer week at Cape Cod. At least a year has passed since Sandwich in which Rocky has lost her mother and her father has temporarily moved in. Willa is home from college and working at the local university. Rocky is happy as her house is full again...and then she starts to get a funny rash, a rash that keeps spreading and mystifying doctors. I laughed in this book and I cried - it truly addresses the highs and lows of illness and how life does go on despite them.

Catherine Newman's are basically the 2025 literary version of a Nancy Meyers movie. Newman creates vivid characters and doe dialogue very well. Both Sandwich and this one, its sequel, go down so easy. I liked this one better than Sandwich, but still found it to be so trite. The main character is insufferable, but I have to say, written very well because she annoys me so much. All the details are so perfect to identify who these people are. Not sure why this was written because it does nothing but continue on from Sandwich in a meandering, pointless way.

I love to hate Newman's books so have a hard time rating them. Lol. Basically it's the evergreen story of the rich white woman obsessing about herself and her kids, but disguised as a meditation on life itself.

Guilty pleasure for sure and really hoping Newman is done writing this family.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Fans of last years Sandwich will love the chance to reconnect with Rocky, Nick, Jamie, Maya and Willa. Set approximately 2 years after Sandwich, Wreck sees the family continuing to live their lives - Jamie and Maya are married and living in New York City, Willa has graduated from college and is living at home while she applies to PhD programs, Rocky and Nick are continuing on, and Rocky's father has come to live with them after the death of her mother. Rocky experiences medical issues that ring disturbingly true to life - annoying, inconclusive, endless. A local tragedy touches the family in unexpected ways. In the end, life continues on. If you enjoy this "slice of how another family is" type novel, you will enjoy this - they family are cringey in all the right ways. If the meandering/plotlessness of it all isn't your cup of tea, then this one will probably bother you even more than Sandwich did. Definitely a recommend for fans and those who are experiencing all the glories of middle age.

I really enjoyed Sandwich, and I’m so glad that I got to revisit this family again. While I liked Sandwixh, I absolutely loved reading Wreck. The characters have matured a little bit and the story was so relatable and touching. As a librarian, I think these two books would be a terrific series for a book group.

Catherine Newman captures the feeling of motherhood so well. I feel like she’s been in my head and heart and somehow puts these thoughts and feelings into words. But she doesn’t make her characters saints, they are real and have real flaws. Great story. Can’t wait for more.

If you like Catherine Newman, then I have great news — her latest novel, Wreck, picks up the twisted yet funny world of Rocky and her family two years after Sandwich. If you’ve never read Newman, then prepare for a menopausal woman who loves her family, obsesses over the minutiae of life, and worries endlessly about everything. But in a funny way. Wreck finds Rocky dealing with medical issues, her 92-year-old father, and an accident in her town that took the life of a young man she didn’t know, but can’t stop thinking about. Newman has a way of making everything feel very real, but also laugh-out-loud funny, so fans of hers should look forward to adding Wreck to their TBR pile.

I did not enjoy this a s much as Sandwich. It felt too chaotic and like a first draft. It needed more editing. I do think it would spark a lot of discussion in a middle age female book club - it was relatable, just not as fleshed out as it could have been. I'm sorry they rushed this to publication.

I loved Sandwich and this book was already getting rave reviews.. so I had to read it. This WAS a sequel to Sandwich, but you certainly could have read either book on its own. The plots were not really related, but this book lacked the character development of Sandwich, so if you didn't know their backstories, I think you could miss out.

This book just didn't work for me in the way that Sandwich did. It felt a lot like I was reading a memoir.. but allegedly, this is fiction. Particularly the medical situation the main character was dealing with wasn't really a story.. it was like reading someones' actual medical experience. Like Sandwich, it was very dialogue heavy, but I didn't find it as funny or relatable. The story about the train accident was more of a plot, but I didn't find it believable. I also didn't find the ending very satisfying.

Catherine Newman's Sandwich is one of my favorite five-star reads in recent memory, so I was thrilled when she announced another novel set in that world.. I first became familiar with Newman's work via her first-person writing about pregnancy and parenting, as I was in a similar life stage at the time. She's always had a way of capturing the wonderful, hilarious, messy, absurd, poignant, and occasionally heartbreaking truths of parenting that makes her nonfiction writing extremely relatable, and this quality is reflected in her fiction as well.

Settling back down with Rocky and her family was like catching up with old friends. The dialogue--particularly between parents and their young adult children--is natural and relatable, as are the events upon which the plot hinges. Rocky's struggles and anxieties are so similar to my own that it's hard for me to know how much of this novel is autobiographical and how much is absolute fiction.

I will note that some of the events in this fast-paced novel--a death in the community and the process of receiving a medical diagnosis--might hit to close to home to make this an entirely enjoyable read for some.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ebook ARC copy for review. All opinions are my own.

I loved everything about Sandwich, Catherine Newman's first book about Rocky and Nick and Jamie and Willa, so I was super excited to learn that they would be back in a new book called Wreck. I had so many other books to read before this one, but I just couldn't wait. I inhaled Wreck like it was a chocolate cake and read it in almost one entire sitting.

This time the book takes place at the family home in Western Massachusetts. Rocky's mom has passed and her 92-year-old dad is living with them, as is sensitive and anxious Willa, who is working in a lab in the university in town while she applies to neuroscience PhD programs. Jamie is a junior analyst at a consulting firm in New York CIty, where he lives with his partner Maya, but he and Rocky text often, sharing Wordle scores or the ridiculous finds on their local Buy Nothing Facebook groups.

This is an outstanding book about life from the point of view of a married menopausal woman with adult children. Two intersecting events are at the core of this novel - a train wreck in town that kills a classmate of Jamie's and a strange and spreading rash that Rocky notices on her skin. Both make Rocky extremely anxious - how will Jamie take the death of his classmate? What if the rash is skin cancer?

The plot of the novel is essentially about how Rocky and her family deal with the fallout of the crash and the evolving skin condition that doctors can't seem to diagnose, but it is a rich and compelling story of the human condition when faced with trauma and uncertainty.

Newman's strength lies in the development of her characters, who are all so relatable you feel like they are your friends instead of people you are reading about. I continue to love Rocky's close connection with Willa, who is emotional and sensitive. As a menopausal woman with sensitive young adult children I could definitely relate to Rocky's character. I particularly liked the portrayal of Rocky's medical anxiety because it is something I struggle with, and Newman captured it perfectly. Rocky keeps her phone out of her room but will go get it in the middle of the night to check her patient portal for her results, even though her doctor tells her not to. She looks up the results on Google and Reddit threads to find out more on the condition that is taking over her skin and life. Rocky is a no-holds-barred woman - she tells you what she thinks - and I loved her for this.

I am so happy to report that Catherine Newman has done it again with Wreck - this is definitely on my best of 2025 list. I hope this is not the last we see of Rocky and Willa and Nick and Jamie - Catherine Newman I want more!

5++++++ stars

I just (finally) read Sandwich and LOVED it, so I dove straight into Wreck immediately after I finished it because I needed MORE ROCKY -- her perimenopausal fury, her hilarious snark, her wild swings between wanting to maybe run away forever and just be left the hell alone and wanting to gather everyone close and never let them out of your sight, loving that your kids are grown and feeling grateful that they are no longer constantly touching you, but then missing them as little kids, the highs and lows of being married for a long time -- her character spoke to me on so many levels.

A lot of the things I really enjoyed about Sandwich are on display here as well, but there was a bigger focus on medical issues, which I'm not a huge fan of, and Rocky's close relationships with her adult kids started to feel a little *too* close sometimes, so it didn't hit quite the same way. So, not my favorite, but I was still very happy to get to spend more time with Rocky, and I dream of someday having a house with a kitchen big enough for a kitchen couch because that sounds amazing.

(3.5 rounded up)

I loved Sandwich and was happy to return to those characters. But this time around the book was hard to pin down. It felt like an unfinished/extra chapter from Sandwich that was expanded to make a book.

I was a big fan of Sandwich, so happy to have access the Newman”s follow up. I love her sense of humor, so dry. Wreck is lacking a bit in actual plot, but the relationships are still strong. Rocky and her tendency to overthink everything is central to this story. Her fears are so very real and mothers will continue to identify with her.

Following Rocky and her family at their home, two years after their Cape Cod vacation, we see how a local accident affects them.

Rocky is back, as well as the rest of the family, including loveable cat, Chicken. Rocky’s wry humor is still in fact; amplified by health worries and the hypochondriac feeling we all experience when something is wrong and we become Google doctors. There are a few issues the family has to contend with but like the first book, the heart of the story is within the family itself. If you enjoyed Sandwich, as I did, you’ll want to read this as well.

“I’m an undammable river of mother love. I’m a torch-brandishing one-woman mob, and I will go after anyone who casts doubt upon the rightness of my child. Even if that person is me.”

Wreck comes out 10/28.