(Book provided by NetGalley, thanks so much!)

This is a hard book to review. I mean, what do you rate a book that started out annoying you to no end, then succeeded in making you an unlikely fan, but finally slapped you in the face with a betrayal? Three stars and one round of cursing at your reading app, I guess.

So here’s the details: three women’s lives are falling apart. How are they connected, you ask? Don’t. You won’t find out until the end, anyway. At which point it’s a clever, sweet way of ending the book, but you can’t start trying to figure it out from the beginning. They do add to each other, being intertwined, but they don’t know each other.

Anyway. Three women’s lives are falling apart, and it’s sort of terrible. I actually considered just marking it DNF and moving on. but I gave it another shot for one reason only, the same reason I requested it from NetGalley in the first place:

MRS is marked as an LGBTQ book. It shouldn’t be.

This is where we discuss the real reason this book I ended up loving lost two stars. Not only does Mims’s journey to figuring out that she likes women get cut off without any kind of resolution (barely even being addressed!), but the only major gay character dies, and the other minor character isn’t enough to warrant being put in the LGBTQ genre. The only person who could justify it was Mims, and we never get so much as the word “bisexual” uttered on page.

Yeah, I’m bitter. But let’s move on.

Next, these three women have to start putting the pieces of their lives back together, and finally things look up. There’s new friendships being built, new and old hobbies and talents being (re)discovered, family feels and romance for some of them. It’s funny and cute and genuinely fun to read, even with all the ups and downs.

Rory was undeniably my favorite. She’s a writer (even if she’s writing smut while I’m skimming right over it), and she’s snarky and a little self-destructive and Jewish! That ended up being one of my favorite things about the book. Rory’s not very religious, but she still cares a lot about being Jewish, and the book doesn’t brush over how even a very casual relationship to Judaism shapes your life. Rory goes to events at her synagogue, has a seder with her family, bonds with her love interest about her Jewish grandmother and Jewish food. It was relatable and uplifting the way the all the main characters’ joy at having new friendships were relatable and uplifting.

So don’t read MRS for gay representation. Maybe don’t read it at all, because I will always be bitter about certain things. But if you need something about pulling your life back together even when it’s hard, about things turning out okay and perhaps even better than before… give it a shot.

There was something about the cover of this book that snagged my attention right away. It was that moment when I realized, those parts don’t go together. Then I read the blurb for MRS by Noa Grey, and I thought, hmmm, interesting… well, maybe... I thought the play on the main characters’ names was clever. But I still wasn’t sure if it was going to be an interesting read. I was curious enough to make it to the second page, and then it clicked. What do you do when your most trusted counselor, mentor, in-your-head friend dies and leaves you to make out in the world on your own? The women of the world are set adrift when this major Oprah meets Dear Abby advice empress dies.

Mims, Rory and Sarah are all battling to become the best MRSs they can be in their own ways. Two already married and one on the husband hunt, these women share one thing in common. They aren’t really trying to be MRSs at all–they are trying to remember how to be themselves. And that’s where Hope, the beloved self-help guru, comes in. Although we are introduced to this character through others’ memories and impressions of her–or rather her advice–Hope is the personification of that thing Mims, Rory and Sarah are all really looking for–hope. In a way each one has lost hope in herself. For Mims it’s hope to make it past her deceased daughter’s death; for Rory it’s hope in her own creative abilities; and for Sarah it’s hope in her own sense of direction. These women have lost their way, and the symptoms of their true ailment manifests in their interactions with men. MRS by Noa Grey isn’t your typical romance.

I love this book. I love how it complicates–or recognizes the complexities of–the concept of being a MRS. There is a beautiful tension between how one experiences oneself as an individual versus as a partner with someone else versus as a member of a community. Noa Grey writes wonderfully complex, developing characters, who are allowed room to mess up and to grow and to learn. I am appreciative of her efforts toward diversity; it makes her landscape richer and her narrative deeper. There is little static or formulaic about this book. And just a heads up, if you’re looking for a totally neat ending with a bow on top, Grey does not provide. But she does leave you with satisfaction that Hope is still in the mix even after death. This is a definite must-read page turner.

I really tried with this one. And there were funny parts that made me chuckle and I liked the Dear Hope letters at the beginning but eventually the book just seemed to keep dragging on for me and i cared less and less about knowing how this all turned out.

So i had to DNF this one. I hope these characters actually showed some growth cuz man are they just a bunch of whiny rich white ladies at this point. I'm just not interested in them enough to find out if they do show some kind of character development

THANK YOU NETGALLEY AND NOA GREY for a copy of MRS

Very thought provoking. You have to stick with it to enjoy it.

Writing: The beginning of the story felt fragmented. It took me a moment to catch up. Noa could have given readers a little more information in the prologue. This fragmented writing was seen several times throughout the stories and I imagine it keeps readers from connecting with the book. Each story was so intense that iNoa could have written 3 separate books on each woman and subtly entwined them in each book. This would have prevented some of the fragmented writing.

There were also a couple of mistakes, like narrative descriptions were off. An example is I still have no clue where Helen’s office is. Did she work out of the home or did she have an office somewhere? The most confusing mistake was using the characters wrong names. For instance, Noa wrote Helen walked down the hall instead of Mims. Helen couldn’t walk down the hall because she was dead.

I also didn’t like the male writing. The male POV wasn’t convincing.

Characters: There were three women and 3 stories – Sarah, Mims and Rory. Sarah’s suffering from a broken marriage, trying to find herself and has two sons. Mims is married to Steve and both are suffering from grief. Rory is an unemployed unorthodox Jew trying to stop her destructive behaviors.

Storyline: The story began with the passing of Hope Jackson and then we move onto Rory’s story. I was confused for about 20% of the book. I really wished that Noa would have introduced Hope better.

I’m not sure what Noa’s intentions were with this book, but these stories deeply affected me. This was not a pleasure read for me. There were times that I had to take breaks and allow the emotions and memories that it evoked within me to work its way through. I was able to relate to each of those stories in some way. I have personally helped or listened to friends who have been in similar scenarios in some capacity. For instance, my best friend didn’t lose a child, but she lost her mom to cancer before the age of 20. Every one of these stories hit me hard.

In the midst of utter devastation Noa was able to keep this hidden ray of hope lingering in the background of each story that would shine on the reader when you least expect it. Noa narrated real life despondency such as being laid off and illustrated how life can continue to spiral out of control by our thoughts and choices. She then took these women’s lives and after allowing them to wallow in their pain Noa showed how they each began to rewrite their lives. It was beautiful…sort of.

While the story touched me deeply, there were a lot of things that could have improved the story greatly. I think the major issue that hurt this book tremendously was Noa telling 3 intense stories in one book. She would skim over things, introduce new things and not explain them, drop off a story in a weird place and when it came back around, she would pick it back up somewhere else leaving the reader to wonder what happened, etc. An example - Helen’s death was horribly skimmed over. Leading up to her death and after actually caused me to disconnect from the book for a moment.

Intimacy Scenes: Each scene could be seen as a teaching moment. The intimate scenes whether it had sex or not had a purpose. Sometimes it was destructive, sometimes therapeutic or a much needed re-connection.

Overall, I’m truly shocked that I liked the book because I struggled to connect during the first few chapters. But when I finally connected I entered a journey with 3 women that ended in a future of hope. The book would benefit from some editing and reworking, but I’m glad that I read it.

I liked the book and how it brought the main characters together. It is a fun idea to start all chapters with a question and how all the stories seem to be unconnected until the end when they are put together. Each character has a tragedy happened to them and that is how their story started. It was a different style but very fun to read.

This was about 3 different women and 3 different problems. It was very easy to figure out what was happening and where it would end up. The stupidity of these women are another reason I kept reading. I was able to finish it in a day so it doesn't require much brain power. i did like it though.

Once I started the book I couldn't put it down. I loved that each chapter started with a question written to an advice columnist and how the author wrote the chapters to fluctuate between multiple characters. I felt like I was seeing my own life at different times through the journeys these women traveled and was getting answers about my life that I had been too afraid to ask. It's a beautiful book, a heartwarming story and definitely something every woman should read while encouraging her friends to do the same so we can open up to each other about how "life's a funny thing".