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A Novel
by Rebecca Wait
From the comedically brilliant author of Cry Havoc, a wry, domestic comedy of manners that follows two generations of sisters as they grapple with unstable parents, mental illness, and the general tumult of adulthood.
Alice and Hanna haven't spoken in years—but where better to reconnect with an estranged sister than at a funeral?
Years earlier, their mother Celia and aunt Katy had their own tempestuous relationship. Katy was pretty and easy to love; Celia was unassuming and "unprepossessing," according to their mother. But in her teens, Katy began to change, in bits, then bounds— until finally, her doctors arrived at a diagnosis that then took all the family's energy, though they refused to admit it. Celia was on her own, developing hang-ups that come from a family suffering in silence.
When Celia has her own children—twins Alice and Hanna, saint and sinner, and their eternally disapproving brother Michael—her parenting is, predictably, unconventional. Alice and Hanna seem caught in the unforgiving hands of fate, doomed to repeat the cycle of Celia and Katy as Hanna spins out of control upon entering university.
At the wryly beating heart of I'm Sorry You Feel That Way are sisters, grappling with how family dynamics curdle or calcify over time. Bookended by funerals, where the foibles of human nature and the humor found at the nexus of denial and despair are inevitably on display, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way is a whipsmart addition to a growing body of work by a gifted stylist.
"The characters are delightfully strange and constantly surprising, perfectly suited to a novel shrouded in so many questions. A dark academia novel that's light on academia but bursting with the dark and strange." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Wait crafts an intriguing and mordantly funny glimpse of life in closed communities where groupthink and gossip thrive. Dark academia fans ought to check this out." ―Publishers Weekly
"With sly wit and heartbreaking vulnerability, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way skillfully depicts the subtle miscommunications and profound loneliness that cause and result from estrangement. Rebecca Wait combines crisp, deceptively light prose with well-drawn characters and utter emotional devastation. It's a tender tribute to anyone who's ever felt not quite at home—even or especially at home." ―Ariel Courage, author of Bad Nature
This information about I'm Sorry You Feel That Way was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rebecca Wait studied English at Oxford University and spent more than a decade teaching English in London secondary schools while writing novels. She has also taught creative writing courses for adults. She now lives in Buckinghamshire and writes full time.
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