Reviews with content warning for Child death - Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

I really enjoyed this book, and I was impressed at how the author could so intimately describe the characters' emotions. It was also a really complex look at the characters, which made them feel really human. People are extremely imperfect and make mistakes that hurt people, but we can't easily put them into boxes that are as simple as "good" and "bad." Will definitely read this author again. He had some really good turns of phrase.

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karaplum's review

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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meagankm's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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ltimberlake's review

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emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was sad. But good. Broken families, loss.

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tiffthelibrarian's review

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Depressing to me, and unnecessarily so. Increasingly depressing as it goes on. I liked the characters but I would never read anything else by this author due to it being such a downer.

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mmariericker's review

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emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I really liked this one, though it wasn't what I was expecting. We get more timelines than I anticipated and there's more grief

and then Mariel up and friggin dies!! After a hard life!!

than I would've expected, too. But it's about community and family and it's not a super deep dive, but it's really precise snapshots. And that's true about Stradal's other work, too. I was excited to pick this one back up every time and that's something I sorely needed. And the Lakeside Supper Club was painted in such detail it is a character. It feels like you can step inside of it. This book would be good for anyone who liked Marrying the Ketchups, too.

This is how a future gets derailed, she thought. She'd heard enough regrets in her lifetime to know that dreams don't always die because of something terrible, but more often because of something that's merely acceptable.

Arguments are the leaves, and the relationship is the trunk, Archie liked to say. One comes and goes, and the other doesn't change, except to get stronger.

Ned had no clue how any parent could live a life without regret. Like most parents, he just had to choose which regrets he could live with. His father had evidently chosen his.

She thought then about how the word "miscarriage" is horrible, miscarry, how it blames the woman, as if she failed or made a mistake, when it's the embryo that's unviable. When she wanted nothing more in the world than to carry. When she wanted nothing more.

"The American dream isn't to own a business. The American dream is to go fishing."

She tried to forget the guilt she felt that generations of her family's toil and dreams were now exchanged for this peace. She still didn't know what she was going to do with her life. All she knew was that this is where she wanted to start.

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mschwartz's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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reverendmix's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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