Review: Between Us

Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.7 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

He’d been the body on the other side of her bed since she was twenty-three. Ending it felt huge. 

Starting off when Roisin was twelve and learning that her parents had an open relationship, the story then jumps twenty-two years to Roisin's own on the rocks relationship. She's an English secondary school teacher who supported her boyfriend Joe for years but now with a successful tv series under his belt and lots of buzz about his new one about to debut, his screenwriting is taking off. Roisin can't tell if all this success and stress of an exploding career is temporarily causing this distance between them or if the problem has been building for some time. When the group of friends they made working as young twenty somethings at a bookstore, calling themselves the Brian Club, has them getting together for a weekend to celebrate an engagement and birthday, Roisin sees it as an opportunity to really think about if she wants to stay with Joe. 

Faking it never really worked. 

With a Mhairi McFarlane book, you're usually going to get a highly emotional read with all the highs and lows of life, this was no exception. I did think the beginning felt very jumbled with a good amount of characters coming at us readers and trying to work out who was who and how they fit into the picture, relationships. The first half felt more trying to be ensemble piece before the second half zeroed in more on Roisin and her trying to work out her life. With all the characters, some ended up feeling distant to me, Meredith and Dev of the Brian Club, along with Dev's fiancee, played roles but were jostled in the crowd too much. The second half had Roisin weakly saying and thinking it was over with Joe after she feels betrayed about something personal she told that he ended up using in his new show and reveals a different side to him that she never allowed herself to see before, making her question what else could be true from his life that appeared on the show. With his smooth talking ways, he says they'll talk about it more when he comes back from a trip to America. This leaves Roisin to think about if she is seeing things that aren't there or if their relationship is really over. When she has a panic attack at school, she starts her summer break early and with her mom saying she had a health scare and needs help at the family's pub, Roisin uses it as an opportunity to escape and get distance from her life. This also brings in one of members of the Brian Club, Matt, as he helps out at the pub and their relationship starts to take on a new look as they finally get time alone together. 

She wanted to find a better part of herself for Matt, someone who wasn’t bedazzled by Mean Boys. After a start that I thought was a little harder to get into, I loved the second half. The relationships and dynamics of the Brian Club get fleshed out more and Roisin has time and distance to really wade through her emotions, about her relationship with Joe and how her parent's relationship and her relationship with them affected how she views love. Throughout, Roisin is trying to figure out if Joe ever cheated on her, because of something on the show she saw, and that hovers over for the majority of the story until the latter second half when Roisin gets her answer. I thought the changing dynamic and opening up of Roisin's eyes in regards to her relationship with Matt was aching sweet and though it kind of stays to the sides, until a sudden spotlight scene, her relationship with her mother was also a deceptively hit you hard all of a sudden. 

Odd how microscopic pauses could be so decisively revealing. 

I thought some of the last twenty percent felt a little disjointed, with a looking like a happy ending only to revert focus back on the question of Joe's cheating to help bring in a quick dark moment. I hesitate to label this Chik-Lit as it doesn't feel light enough, if you want an exploring of emotions and relationships, Contemporary Fiction with Romance, a Kate Clayborn adjacent, definitely pick this up. Like I said, this touched on all the highs and lows of life and while I don't think it ever did lasting stays in the doldrums of the topics (cheating, abortion, child sexual abuse), they still packed a punch. This author has an amazing ability to really bring truth and feeling to life's emotions, whether it's struggles within yourself or with others. A heart warming smile was brought to my face over a reveal of feelings between characters but also watery eyes from pain the characters were enduring, to a delighted sigh at the happy start ending.

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