I received this book for free from the publisher via Goodreads Giveaways.

Sarah Moss can be hit or miss for me. I frequently find that I leave her books confused and feeling stupid, like I was supposed to catch a bunch of things that somehow eluded me while reading. I can handle dense prose, but I can’t say I care for big lofty emotional points that I’m meant to pick up and often don’t.

That wasn’t my problem here. Moss is incredibly heavy-handed with the point she’s trying to make, making it hard to ignore that her hot take on the pandemic and lockdowns is in fact a cold take. Choosing a middle-road to very clear situations like a pandemic is the antithesis of what I want in a book. An author can introduce nuance in a situation while still advocating for safety measures. Hell, I honestly think I would have felt more toward the story than I did if Kate or one of the other characters were more vehemently anti-PPE, anti-lockdown, etc. As it is, the story is bland and leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and not in the good way after a thought-provoking read.

The only character I really felt for was Matt, Kate’s son. He didn’t really seem to have much agency, both because he was a teenager and because of the lockdown. I could have done without the Alice sections altogether, quite frankly, and Rob at least provided a different perspective on things that was refreshing.

I do wonder what this little novel might have been if it were a short story instead. There are several sections that I would have removed, and others that I would have replaced with perhaps different scenes. But this is the story we have, and Moss’s insistence on delivering a certain message through the book makes this one fall short of her other work.