She has a knack for saying things the rest of us might think but don't say. I laughed several times. 

Title: Sandwich
Author: Catherine Newman
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: 4.50
Pub Date: June 18, 2024

T H R E E • W O R D S

Relatable • Nostalgic • Messy

📖 S Y N O P S I S

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

💭 T H O U G H T S

I had the opportunity of travelling to East Sandwich, MA in April 2024 for a grief retreat with some amazing ladies, so adding Sandwich to my TBR was an obvious choice. Marketed as the ultimate summer read, I knew it would be an ode to Cape Cod and the slow pace of life associated with escaping city life and making memories.

Spanning one week, we follow three generations on their annual family vacation, while also getting flashbacks to vacations from years gone by. Exploring themes of motherhood, parenting, shifting family dynamics, ageing, making memories, and the love language of food, this novel wholly embraces Cape life.

Each member of the family has their own personal flaws, yet it is these flaws that makes this such a relatable story. I appreciated being inside Rocky's mind and getting a front row seat to her train of thought, which was at times hilarious. There are definitely summer vacation vibes here, but it also has a layer of depth and serious topics.

Sandwich was the perfect short read for my summer travel. My travel to the area where it is set enhanced my reading experience and ultimately brought the setting to life even more than Newman's writing does. Marketed as a summer read, this one has a lot more emotional depth than I was anticipating, so if you're looking for something light and fluffy, this isn't it. I'll definitely be exploring more of this author's work in the future.

📚 R E A D • I F • Y O U • L I K E
• Cape life
• family vacations
• the love language of food

⚠️ CW: mental illness, post-partum depression, pregnancy, miscarriage, blood, abortion, infertility, sexual content, death, death of parent, grief, body shaming, cursing, alcohol, vomit

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Maybe grief is love imploding. Or maybe it's love expanding. I don't know. I just know you can't create loss to preempt loss because it doesn't work that way. So you might as well love as much as you can. And as recklessly. Like it's your last resort, because it is."

"There are wounds that never really heal, no matter how much time they take."

"Life is a seesaw, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced: living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nicky here with me at the fulcrum." 

One of my favorites ever ever. The words, the dialogue, the people — all of it is so heart-stopping, so beautiful, so human and poetic and precious, even as it makes you laugh wildly as you read. The details of the setting, the characters’ histories, the nuances of how they interact — truly, I’ve never read another book with more wondrous and personal shading, layers, and magic. I loved this. I will read it again, and I will go back and read Catherine Newman’s first book, her essays, her non-fiction, and then every word she writes forever.

Sandwich has a LOT. In a way super lovely and an ode to mothers and women and love. Also hard and ugly and uncomfortable and utterly sad. I think most women will both feel seen and relieved, but also stressed and depressed. It's a really strange book to try and describe. Definitely one I will be thinking about for a while... It could be super triggering; there is a lot about all aspects of the female reproductive system.

This book was... Okay! I did notice pretty quickly that I for sure was not the target audience. As a 24-year-old woman, I could more than relate to Rocky's children but struggled connecting to her, the main character. I found her irrational and frustrating and had difficulty empathizing at times. Still, when I showed some passages to my mid-50s mother, she said Rocky sounded completely normal, and her behavior, while not great, was understandable. So clearly, it's not quite a book that fits for me. Another thing I also found frustrating was the "miscommunication trope", if you will, that seems to permeate a lot of books when there needs to be a conflict that arises. It's tiresome as a reader, but realistic as well, so it's not a deep-seated qualm I have with Newman. On a much minor note, there were a few times in dialogue and Rocky's inner monologue that made me physically cringe, which was a bit painful but again, I'm 24, and my mom joking about TikTok makes me cringe too, so it tracks.

Overall a decent read, but it is difficult to relate to the main character without undergoing menopause myself. I suppose that uncomfortableness I chaffed up against is intended, to try to get readers to understand the feelings and actions of someone undergoing these insane hormone changes. But I'm not in the audience/demographic that can emotionally connect to Newman's book/writing.