Mary

My first Nat Cassidy book and it deserves every single star, wish I could give it more!

Mary, Mary, quite out of this world! No, Mary, I didn't call you crazy! We are NOT crazy!

"Memory is a mansion, and dreams are the spaces between its walls." -Mary Nat Cassidy

Please check trigger warnings as this book is NOT for the faint of heart.

This book was such a crazy ride, I just finished it and my brain is swarming with all the twists Nat Cassidy gave this book. Is it ghosts? Is it psychological? Is she doing this? Are they doing this? So, many questions you will ask yourself until finally you are lead to the truths where you can open your eyes and see what really is going on!

Mary is a woman who is turning 50 years old soon and is dealing with Perimenopause. Her Aunt Nadine calls asking Mary to come help her. Aunt Nadine's daughter is on "vacation" and Nadine is dying... Mary finally agrees to do this for Nadine and discovers that her daughter isn't just on vacation, but gone for good. Once Mary begins to talk to some locals including some of the women who bullied her as a child, some things start to unravel. There really isn't too much I can add in this review without giving spoilers on it other than what I have already written now. This is a MUST read, you have to go get this book. It's worth it, believe me. I love when authors do research and make a book seem realistic.

"I love her more today than yesterday.
But not as much as tomorrow.
Who am I?
I am just a story written in present tense.
We all are. We are never finished.
I am life and I am alive, I tell the night sky. And life, with all its Changes and joys, with all its cycles and surprises, goes on.
And on." -Mary Nat Cassidy.

I was a little unsure of this book because the main character is a female going through perimenopause and it's written by a man, which has been problematic in the past to say the least. However, Nat did a really great job of actually portraying the issues in health that females are usually dealing with. There is also a lot of references to the misogynistic view towards women and aging and basically losing their worth. The forward and afterward are essential for this one because Nat does a job of explaining why he was ok with telling this story since he's not a woman and why he ends it where he does, because the ending was a bit of a loose end, but it makes sense with why he stopped it at that point.

Also, I listened to the audiobook for this one and was absolutely blown away by Susan Bennett. She got the insanity down so convincingly that you really feel like you're listening to the ramblings of someone losing their mind. It was fantastic and I'm very glad that I listened to this one.

The only thing that's stopping me from giving this a full 5 stars is that there were some moments that it felt like the story dragged on a little too much. I think with a little more cutting and slimming down of those parts, this would have been an absolute slammer of a book. I definitely will the adding more of Cassidy's books to my TBR and bumping them up on the list.

The cover and the description really sucked me in, and will likely do the same to other women of a certain age (yes that is me!)
How clever, (I thought) to take what is already a difficult transition in a woman's life and turn it into a horror novel. I thought this was a novel about a woman who had suffered some trauma or breakdown in her life, now trying to cope with menopause and further emotional and physical upset. Mary is about to have her 50th birthday, and she is going through some normal and not-so-normal experiences. Unfortunately, Mary is also an unreliable narrator and this book is full of unlikable characters.
At first, I could somewhat relate to her, the feeling invisible, the avoidance of mirrors. The story has a really strong beginning with creepy scenes and some humor too. Then it sort of peters out and turns into a draggy slow paced festival of weirdness that is too out there even for me. And that is really saying something. I'm not that bothered that a male author attempted to write from the viewpoint of a menopausal woman, in fact, kudos for even trying to understand. I have no problem with male authors writing female characters or vice versa. It just didn't really work for me. It tried to combine too many elements into one plot that stretched on for too long. You may enjoy it more than I did.


My thanks to Tor Nightfire