Hello readers! Guess whose birthday it is tomorrow? Mine! I have been so busy in the past four months that i have not even processed turning 26 and all the changes that are happening in my life. Isn’t it odd? How you can be simultaneously so present in your body and your life, and still feel like you have not processed anything?
But let me just dive into a short, non-spoilery review of this ARC I got from Netgalley!
Sometimes there comes a novel in your life that will make you feel every rivulet of sweat, every tear cried, the scorching sensation of the sun on your body heating up on the asphalt, and this is one of those novels. In this case, the melting heat comes with a whale stuck in the Thames and an array of characters whose lives will all take a turn on one hot summer day.
The novel has a fresh and delicate narrative that intertwines multiple perspectives, nonetheless connecting them to each other in overlapping narratives. McKenna’s writing and use of prose allow us to see a bigger, kaleidoscopic view of everybody’s lives both in the present and in the past. Decisions that were made consciously or unconsciously still riverb through the years, actively shaping the protagonists’ lives and their actions.
The book covers a lot of fragile themes that McKenna handles beautifully: a mother’s cancer diagnosis and the way it triggers her to reexamine her life, a sexual assault whose pain is still felt years later, a coming out in precarious financial conditions and an unexpected pregnancy. There is a whole lot that is presented so naturally, as these lives complicate as lives do.
“Evenings & Weekends” is a great debut work that weaves the hardships of life with the little joys of it, the breakthrough moments when things fall into place and you can finally breathe again, just as rain cracks open the sky after a drought.
What do you think of this one? It’s one I for sure recommend and it’s out May 9th!
LitForQueers 
Happy birthday!
LikeLike