Member Reviews

This was such a powerful read, The authors writing style enabled me to get to know the setting and the characters. I will definitely be read further work from them.

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Friendship love and loss. Interesting looking at several different hard hitting ideas. I enjoyed the writing style and would read from this author again, thank you for the opportunity to review.

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Edges of Me was a complicated story of love, loss, friendship and mental health struggles. This story centers around the unlikely friendship of Claire and Jenny who first meet while Claire is a patient In a psych ward and Jenny is her nurse. After this brief meeting the two go their separate ways only to meet again a few years later under different circumstances, this second chance encounter truly is the beginning of their blossoming friendship that spans decades of their lives. Told from multiple POVS, both those of the main characters and also some of the characters closest to them in their lives, this story covers some very dark times in the lives of both women. Ongoing struggles with eating disorders, mental health issues (specifically BPD), child loss, and rape are some of the obstacles these women face together both strengthening and taxing their friendship. The multiple POVs make the task of reading this story rather arduous, as does the way in which Claire’s story is told. While this may be the way in which the author intended to share the struggles of this particular mental illness, it does leave the reader struggling to connect and/or invest with this character.

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In the novel "Edges of Me," the narrative unfolds around the intricate relationship between two women, Jenny and Claire. Over the course of several decades, a deeply intertwined friendship evolves between them, prompting questions about whether they will emerge from their shared experiences intact, or if the boundaries between them are too muddled for either to thrive independently. The topic of this novel is captivating and emotional. However, the multitude of character perspectives detract from the story and make it confusing. I think that a more concentrated exploration of Jenny and Claire, and less of an emphasis on the other characters and points of view, would have enhanced the novel and streamlined the plot. This novel offers a poignant portrayal of friendship and mental illness, but there is some room for improvement in terms of the narrative focus and character depth.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

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I really wanted to like this but unfortunately i could never engaging fully with the story. The writing was stunning and really shone and what kept me reading until the end. My issues were the characters. I liked Claire and Jenny, our two main protagonists, but there were too many POVs for me to follow. Sadly not for me.

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The story of friendship intertwined with mental health issues was definitely a different read for me and I enjoyed it but unfortunately it did not keep my attention throughout as I had hoped.

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Two female friends, Jenny and Claire, first meet as psychiatric nurse and patient.



Both are searching for their identity.
A story of friendship and independency

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DNF @ 64%

I was interested in reading this book as it focused on mental health, specifically BPD, but I just couldn’t get into it and got bored of it halfway through. There were so many character POVs, it was hard to remember who was who at the start and it really just took away from the two main characters, Claire and Jenny. The story moves fairly quickly as it starts when the women are 19 and progresses until they are about 30 but at the same time it felt like it dragged on as I never really felt connected or attached to characters. They went through a lot in their lives but with all the other characters mixed in, it was hard to just focus on them.
I believe this book would have been more effective it was just told from the two women’s POVs and delved deeper into their mental health and struggles. It would have also cut the length of the book.

Thank you to netgalley and Cranthorpe Millner Publishers for the ARC! ✨

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This is the life of two women and their friendship.
It's either, you get attached to the characters so you can enjoy the book or, you don't and in this case the book will seem boring.
The book has more than hundred chapters and cut in "era"s, so the pacing of the story is relatively quick.
At the beginning I was a little bit lost with all the characters and their relationship. Because of this confusion, it leds me to care less about them for the rest of the book.
Thank you netgalley for the copy.

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A story of two women, exploring friendship, metal illness, and the inevitable highs and lows of life. Claire and Jenny are two very different characters, who after a brief but intense encounter in their early 20s follow very different paths in life before they meet again and form a co-dependent and potent friendship. Each chapter follows either Claire or Jenny’s POV, or that of another character connected to one of the women. This gives us a deep sense of who they are, Claire has BPD which makes her chapters particularly challenging to read, but I thought the author did a good job of forming a character with this this complex and difficult mental health condition. The chapters do move quickly through the story, and we cover decades of their lives throughout the story, I feel a more focused timeframe could have built the intensity between them more successfully. So much of the novel is building us the picture of the two women living separately, which could have been done in fewer chapters, without losing the depth of character development.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

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The idea behind this book is a wonderful one, and I had high hopes for it. But sadly it was lacking in focus and purpose. There were numerous chapters based on the experience of other minor characters which meant that interest in the main characters kept being lost, and it sought to tell lengthy life stories after the two protagonists had met. Essentially it tried to do too much and became less because of it. I lost interest far too early on as a result. If the author is of a mind to it could well be worth reworking the book to refine it and lose a lot of the extraneous additions and to become a far more intense, focused read. I say this because it has the essence of a powerful novel.

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I was so drawn in by the premise of this book but I think it wasn't as impactful as it could have been. The novel spans decades and often times the story goes too fast to really become engrossed in either Jenny or Claire or their relationship. I didn't really see their bond, one chapter they met and the next they were suddenly best friends but we didn't get a sense as to why or how. Claire is a difficult character to analyze, since her chapters are from her point of view it's unclear if information just wasn't shared or if it was purposely hidden under the guise of an unreliable narrator. I've also heard other accounts of individuals living with BPD and again, maybe since we are told these details from Claire's POV, she often cited depression and I didn't see where her official diagnosis stemmed from. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC!

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Edges of Me is a story of female friendship and mental illness, told year by year from the perspective of a psychiatric nurse and her patient. It was clear when reading that this is the authors first novel..some timeliness were off and the characters voices weren't as sure.

I believe we were supposed to feel some form of compassion or empathy for the character of Claire who was living with undiagnosed BPD through much of the book, but I found it incredibly challenging to do so. That in turn makes reading her characters POV incredibly challenging and honestly a little painstaking. I would still recommend this debut, it was worth it for the good parts.

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Edges of Me is a story of female friendship and mental illness, told year by year from the perspective of a psychiatric nurse and her patient. It was clear when reading that this is the authors first novel..some timeliness were off and the characters voices weren't as sure.

I believe we were supposed to feel some form of compassion or empathy for the character of Claire who was living with undiagnosed BPD through much of the book, but I found it incredibly challenging to do so. That in turn makes reading her characters POV incredibly challenging and honestly a little painstaking. I would still recommend this debut, it was worth it for the good parts.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for the arc. Publication date: June, 2024.

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What an interesting story and dynamic. How heart breaking and inspiring all at once. I cannot wait to read abt these young women and their unlikely friendship.

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