What readers think of We Are Not Ourselves, plus links to write your own review.

At 620 pages this was not a quick read. I kept wondering when something would happen, not realizing until the end what an impactful read I was having. Each character is fully developed and each character's struggle becomes real in the reader's journey through this book. I do recommend this book to readers who are open to a long read and the emotional impact.

This book is profound. But it is also a great disappointment.

This is the story of Eileen, an Irish-American from a working class family in Queens, who marries Ed. Together they have a child, Connell. This is the story of their lives--Eileen's determined quest for a large and beautiful home, Ed's dedication to teaching at the community college level and Connell's growing up. It's a boring story--until the halfway mark. And then the crisis happens that forever and unalterably changes their lives. Unfortunately, many readers may give up on the book long before that point. The writing is uneven. For example, there is a description of Eileen's completely uneventful commute home that takes up several pages, while the announcement that she is finally pregnant after years of trying is one sentence long and comes totally out of the blue.

Still, the second half has an important message, addressing one of the biggest health scourges of our time. And author Matthew Thomas handles this difficult topic deftly and with aplomb, compassion and empathy.

So why did I not like the book? It took me a while to figure it out. The main character, Eileen, is mean. She's a mean girl through and through. She's mean to her husband. She's mean to her son. She's mean to the people at work. She is also angry and materialistic. She is the kind of woman I would avoid in real life, so having to read a (very) long book about her felt like spending way too much time with someone I perceived as toxic. (Why did I finish it? I'm one of those readers who just does that.)

Although the book has been recognized with scads of accolades, I think it's missing something at its very core: a heart and soul.