Sandwich by Catherine Newman is an emotional drama that spends one week in the life of a family on their annual summer vacation at Cape Cod. It is recommended.

Nick and Rocky (Rachel) and their two grown children, Jamie and Willa, always spend one week a summer at the same cottage. Maya, Jamie's girlfriend has joined them this year and Rocky's parents will also be stay with them for a few days. Rocky is menopausal, experiencing hot flashes, angry, and emotional in contrast to Nick, who is easygoing. Rocky narrates the novel which is in part details of what they will eat, comic episodes, reminiscing on past events and heartbreaking secrets, and her menopausal hot flashes and anger. She not only makes plenty of sandwiches for the family to take to the beach, she is now part of the sandwich generation between her aging parents and adult children.

The quality of the writing is good and includes details that create a picture of the setting. The narrative follows the present day vacation with alternating chapters reflecting back on highly emotional events in the past. The state of Rocky's emotions, which are rocky indeed, are also descriptively presented along with her relationship and interaction with her family. At times, however, the interaction between family members was entertaining as written, but seemed unbelievable and unrealistic.

Rocky is a character that I struggled with liking or even relating to on some level, which is essential to this novel because she is the narrator. The constant mention of hot flashes and menopause began to annoy me. She feels over-the-top emotions and anxiety seemingly all the time while being very much self-focused. Some of her thoughts and actions just struck me as off and unrealistic. I should be the target audience for this novel but it put me off more than once. Thanks to HarperCollins for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.
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I love what Catherine Newman did in We All Want Impossible Things — somehow making a book about dying excruciatingly funny — in Sandwich, she turns her impossibly hilarious prose towards marriage, motherhood, menopause, grown children, and beach houses, among other things. Rocky and her family return to the same rental in Sandwich, MA that they have vacationed in for more than 20 years and the week brings back memories both good and bad. If you need plot in your novels then Sandwich may not be for you, but if you want painfully funny commentary —and sometimes just the pain — of middle age, beach rentals, and parenting then grab a copy of Sandwich. ( )

Thank you to Goodreads, the author and the publisher for this ARC.

I'm not very original in what I read and this is one of those examples, family, beach, etc. But it is what it is and I enjoy these types of books so I read them. This one happens to be set in Cape Cod.

Rocky and Nick go for their usual week in the Summer to Cape Cod with their mid-20's children as they usually do and it's a laugh a minute with them bickering and reminiscing (especially Rocky) about when the kids were little here. She's definitely going through menopause when she said that Nick couldn't figure out that she never eats sweets for breakfast and yells at him (in the bakery no less) for not knowing this year after year. This book was so good and Nick and Rocky's kids were so mature. You don't see that in every family book and they all got along. Then at the end of their stay, her parents show up as always. They were a sweet couple too.

The cover is beautiful too. ( )