4.5 stars. I don't think SANDWICH is perfectly written: its pace is uneven, and its proclamations about family are somewhat repetitive. But man, does it have heart. Catherine Newman is one of the few writers I've encountered who can put words to everyday feelings of intense sheer love.

A gem and a half -- and set in Cape Cod! You just can't make it better!

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.

On the face of it this is just a description of a family's annual vacation week on Cape Cod, but it puts Rocky (Rachel) in the middle of events, an empty-nester sandwiched between her grown-up kids and her frail parents, slap bang in the middle of her menopause, which she describes with amusing bewilderedness (I screen grabbed quite a few pages here because I could relate so much, especially the word finding), while at the same time reflecting back to when her kids were young and she had two miscarriages - or were they? (Seriously, it wasn't hard to figure out with all the cryptic clues).

There really isn't much plot but you enjoy the closeness this family has and the love they feel for each other, even though they bicker all the time and lie to each other because they want to protect their family from uncomfortable truths about medical histories or past events.

It's a searingly honest account of what it's like to be a woman with all the issues that can entail.

I really enjoyed this perfect mixture of funny and sad - all the different feelings that can exist inside you at the same time.

The only thing I didn't like were the descriptions of all those weird American sandwiches!