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MRS

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Dear When my daughter died, my husband of thirty years found solace in religion—and possibly another woman. Help.

Dear I got fired today and the man that I’ve been sleeping with left me for his ex-wife. Again. Now I’m a grown woman who lives at home. Help.

Dear My ex-husband embezzled all of our money and is now rotting in jail. I clawed my way into the life I wanted and now I’m about to lose everything. Help.

M ims, R ory, and S arah need answers. But beloved Hope Jackson, the world famous love-sex-life columnist, is gone. What will women do without Hope?

Noa Grey’s debut novel MRS follows the intertwined lives of three women whose stories will have you laughing, crying, and wanting more.

271 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 16, 2016

14 people want to read

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Noa Grey

3 books1 follower

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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Profile Image for Eva.
80 reviews
September 7, 2016
***Book provided by Net Galley and The Studio, a Paper Lantern Lit imprint in exchange for an honest review***

This book interlinks the story of 3 very sad and depressed women. Having read 100 pages out of 271 I could not keep on waiting anymore for their stories to depart. I was hoping for something to happen in their lives, some kind of change, but nothing happened and I just gave up. I am afraid I could not finish it.
Profile Image for Chan.
795 reviews52 followers
March 16, 2017
THANK YOU NETGALLEY AND NOA GREY for a copy of MRS

Very thought provoking. You have to stick with it to enjoy it.
description/

Writing: The beginning of the story felt fragmented. It took me a moment to catch up. Noa could have given readers a little more information in the prologue. This fragmented writing was seen several times throughout the stories and I imagine it keeps readers from connecting with the book. Each story was so intense that Noa could have written 3 separate books on each woman.

There were also a couple of mistakes, like narrative descriptions were off. An example is I still have no clue where Helen’s office is. Did she work out of the home or did she have an office somewhere? The most confusing mistake was using the characters wrong names. For instance, Noa wrote Helen walked down the hall instead of Mims. Helen couldn’t walk down the hall because she was dead.

I also didn’t like the male writing. The male POV wasn’t convincing.

Characters: There were three women and 3 stories – Sarah, Mims and Rory. Sarah’s suffering from a broken marriage, trying to find herself and has two sons. Mims is married to Steve and both are suffering from grief. Rory is an unemployed unorthodox Jew trying to stop her destructive behaviors.

Storyline: The story began with the passing of Hope Jackson and then we move onto Rory’s story. I was confused for about 20% of the book. I really wished that Noa would have introduced Hope better.

I’m not sure what Noa’s intentions were with this book, but these stories deeply affected me. This was not a pleasure read for me. There were times that I had to take breaks and allow the emotions and memories that it evoked to work its way through. I was able to relate to each of those stories in some way. I have personally helped or listened to friends who have been in similar scenarios in some capacity. Every one of these stories hit me hard.

In the midst of utter devastation Noa was able to keep this hidden ray of hope lingering in the background of each story that would shine on the reader when you least expect it. Noa narrated real life despondency such as being laid off and illustrated how life can continue to spiral out of control by our thoughts and choices. She then took these women’s lives and after allowing them to wallow in their pain Noa showed how they each began to rewrite their lives. It was beautiful…sort of.

While the story touched me deeply, there were a lot of things that could have improved the story greatly. I think the major issue that hurt this book tremendously was Noa telling 3 intense stories in one book. She would skim over things, introduce new things and not explain them, drop off a story in a weird place and when it came back around, she would pick it back up somewhere else leaving the reader to wonder what happened, etc. An example - Helen’s death was horribly skimmed over. Leading up to her death and after actually caused me to disconnect from the book for a moment.

Intimacy Scenes: Each scene could be seen as a teaching moment. The intimate scenes whether it had sex or not had a purpose. Sometimes it was destructive, sometimes therapeutic or a much needed re-connection.

Overall, I’m truly shocked that I liked the book because I struggled to connect during the first few chapters. But when I finally connected I entered a journey with 3 women that ended in a future of hope. The book would benefit from some editing and reworking, but I’m glad that I read it.
Profile Image for Jane Shambler.
799 reviews32 followers
July 11, 2017
This is my first ever book by by this author. I found her writing style a little confusing, the way she started her chapters with Dear Hope it read more like a problem page than a novel. But then maybe that was what she wanted.

The book concentrates on three main characters. I feel maybe the author could have written three separate books and got rid off the fragmentation. The three characters are Sarah who is suffering from a broken marriage and has two sons. Mims is suffering from grief and is married to Steve. Rory is a jew who is trying hard to stop her destructive ways.

Now that you see the characters and their issues maybe you will now understand what I meant by fragmented. Hope Jackson who you are introduced too at the beginning is dead and they are somehow all connected. Hope being some kind of guru who they all depend on. I am also not sure if this book should be in lesbian fiction because you only get a brief encounter with Sarah's eldest son and then nothing. Also, Mims is portrayed as by sexual but nothing is developed nor invested in.

I found the book very hard work. I actually contemplated not finishing it but my internal stubbornness to finish what I start kicked in so I persevered. What I found at the end was not a bad story about three different women but I am still not convinced the stories were complete. Grey tended to start a thread, drop it, return to it much later then drop it again.

I'm not sure if I would recommend this book. If I did I would like to see certain editorial improvements. Even those to make it an easier read and maybe more of an introduction of what you are getting into. Enjoy!


*ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley*
Profile Image for Abi (The Knights Who Say Book).
644 reviews111 followers
June 20, 2017
(Book provided by NetGalley, thanks so much!)

This is a hard book to review. What do you rate a book that started out annoying you to no end, succeeded in making you an unlikely fan, but then slapped you in the face with one of your least favorite tropes? Three stars and one round of cursing at your reading app, I guess.

So here's the details: three women's lives are falling apart. How are they connected? Don't ask. You won't find out until the end, anyway. At which point it's a clever, sweet way of ending the book, but you can't start trying to figure it out from the beginning.

Anyway. Three women's lives are falling apart, and it's sort of depressing. I considered marking it DNF and moving on to my much anticipated next read at this point, but I gave it another shot for one reason only. The same reason I requested it from NetGalley in the first place.

MRS is marked as an LGBTQ book.

This is where we discuss the real reason this book I ended up loving lost two stars. Don't read this book just because you're looking for gay characters. Not only does Mims's journey to figuring out that she likes women get cut off without any kind of resolution (barely even being addressed!), Sarah's son doesn't have enough page time to justify the label, either. The only person who could justify it was Mims, and we never get so much as the word "bisexual" uttered on page.

Yeah, I'm bitter. But let's move on.

Next, these three women have to start putting the pieces of their lives back together, and finally things look up. We see them make strong female friendships to cut out the toxic men in their lives, (re)discover new and old hobbies and talents, turn to their families for strength, and yes, in some cases find romance again. It's funny and cute and genuinely fun to read, even with all the ups and downs.

Rory was undeniably my favorite. She's a writer (even if she's writing smut while I'm skimming right over it), and she's snarky and a little self-destructive and Jewish! I know, most people aren't going to read this book because they're looking for Jewish characters, that's a slightly niche reason. But it ended up being one of my favorite things about the book. Rory's not very religious, but she still cares a lot about being Jewish, and the book doesn't brush over how even a very casual relationship to Judaism shapes your life. Rory goes to events at her synagogue, has a seder with her family, bonds with her love interest about her Jewish grandmother and Jewish food. It was relatable and uplifting the way the all the main characters' joy at having new friendships were relatable and uplifting.

So don't read MRS for gay representation. Maybe don't read it at all, because I will always be bitter about certain things. But if you need something about pulling your life back together even when it's hard, about things turning out okay and perhaps even better than before… give it a shot.
Profile Image for Payal.
Author 23 books49 followers
November 6, 2017
It's hard to review and rate a book that I almost abandoned in the first chapter, but persevered and went to mostly enjoy. I would have rated it higher, but the only LGBT character in the book dies and serves no purpose except to further the story of one of the protagonists. Just thinking about it makes me want to take away another star...

The story is about three women, Rory, Mims and Sarah, each of them going through major crises in their lives and how they navigate through them and come out on top. I thought there would be a closer connection between the three of them, but there wasn't. I also wasn't sure what the Hope Jackson connection added to the story (or even if it was needed) -- in retrospect, I think this was an underdeveloped motif in the book.

Rory's story was the one I found most difficult to understand -- she starts off as flaky and irresponsible, in thousands of pounds of credit card debt, but somehow manages to pull off an immensely popular website. How that happens or how she pays off her debt is all left unexplained.

There were a few errors -- for example, Mims is shown as having an office in her home but then, suddenly, she is driving back from a session.
Profile Image for Tea With Rose's Tomes.
21 reviews17 followers
Want to read
March 9, 2022
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book!

First off this book is about three very depressing women. I personally found it very hard to follow with the writing. I think if you like the different outlooks on a depressed view then you would enjoy this book. I however did not which is perfectly fine, but it made it very hard to finish reading.
Profile Image for Just_me.
528 reviews
August 20, 2017
This book contained the mixed narratives of three women and their current life situation and heartache.

I really enjoyed these women's stories and I enjoyed the way they all tied neatly together in the end.

With thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book to read and review
Profile Image for ☘Tara Sheehan☘.
580 reviews23 followers
February 7, 2017
Perfect book to bring women together.

Once I started the book I couldn't put it down. I loved that each chapter started with a question written to an advice columnist and how the author wrote the chapters to fluctuate between multiple characters. I felt like I was seeing my own life at different times through the journeys these women traveled and was getting answers about my life that I had been too afraid to ask. It's a beautiful book, a heartwarming story and definitely something every woman should read while encouraging her friends to do the same so we can open up to each other about how "life's a funny thing".
Profile Image for Amie's Book Reviews.
1,664 reviews175 followers
October 24, 2016
Upon her death, Hope Jackson left millions of women without the self-help guidance they had relied on for years.

"'She was everything to me,' Lois Montgomery of Evanston confessed today. 'I don't know how I'm going to go on without her.' Millions of her peers are in the same boat. A virtual nation lost without the guidance of one savvy, scrappy, and indefatigable woman who was well ahead of her time."

Mims, Rory and Sarah in particular need answers. What the heck are they going to do now that the reknowned love-sex-marriage guru is gone?

Rory has just been laid off from her position at HEART AND HOME - a woman's magazine and "She barely had enough money in her checking account to pay for lunch, much less life." To top off the crapiest day of her life, her divorced boyfriend had decided to go back to his wife - leaving Rory with no job, no boyfriend, no money and a huge amount of credit card debt.

Mims is having an extremely difficult time moving forward after the death of her daughter, Daria. Mim's husband had found solace in religion, but Mims does not share in his belief that religion is the answer especially since they used to attend church as a family and just being there reminds her too much of Daria. To make matters worse, she suspects that her husband might be having an affair. Married for thirty years, she has no idea how to move forward with her life.

Sarah's husband is in jail. Turns out he embezzled a lot of money. Now, all her supposed "friends" at the Country Club who live in McMansions just like the one she lives in, have begun to snub her. After clawing her way up in the world from the trailer park where she was raised, she has two sons, no job and she might just lose everything if the law decides to take her home as restitution for her husband's misdeeds. She is floundering and her future is uncertain.

What the heck are they going to do?

Hope Jackson always said: "Ain't nobody gonna take care of you the way you can take care of yourself." But can these women find a way to follow her advice.

Reading this book proves that you can't judge a person based on outward appearances and will have you looking at those around you in a different and more empathetic light.

This book is hilarious at times and heart-wrenching at other times. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. But most of all it will keep you entertained from beginning to end.

I rate this book as 5 out of 5 stars and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun read.
Profile Image for Katrina Rose.
156 reviews6 followers
July 22, 2016
Women from around the world relied on the advice of Hope Jackson when it came to love, sex and life. When she suddenly passes away the women don’t know who to turn to. Sarah, Rory and Mims need answers and have found themselves knee deep in relationship issues and parenting problems. “MRS” follows these three women on their journey to find their authentic self and start living again.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book as there aren’t any reviews out yet. I walked into this story very hesitantly as it strays from my typical reading genres. “MRS” appeared to be the soap opera version of a book. However, I was more than surprised to find I was intrigued from the first chapter.

For any woman who has ever been cheated on, dealt with rebellious children or found themselves feeling lost among the world, “MRS” promises to fill you with hope. I found myself relating to all three women in some form or another. Noa Grey brilliantly brings to the table a way to cope with the obstacles that get thrown our way.

“MRS” covers topics relating to cancer, suicide, depression, infidelity, homosexuality and so much more. I applaud the author for being able to sew these topics together so gracefully and fluidly.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this e book in exchange for an honest reveiw
126 reviews7 followers
July 27, 2016
Firstly thank you to the publisher for a free arc of this book. The storyline follows that of 3 women who in their own way deal with "life matters" as advised by an agony aunt. When this agony aunt dies they are left to fend for themselves and deal with their own catastrophes.
I did enjoy the book, the characters were interesting ... all extremely flawed which is what made them so easy to identify with.
The plot could have been a bit stronger ... at times it felt a little bit rushed and then everything was wrapped it neatly for a "happyish" ending.
A light summer read ....
Profile Image for Heidi | Paper Safari Book Blog.
1,155 reviews21 followers
August 6, 2016
Noa Grey's debut novel seems to be three separate stories totally unconnected until the end when Grey weaves them all together in a brilliant finale.

Each story is about finding yourself after tragedy. Mims lost a daughter, Rory a job, and Sarah her husband. Each woman has to rediscover who they are and learn how to live again.

This is a well written book that brings humor and empowerment to these stories. This was truly a brilliant guilty pleasure.
3 reviews
September 4, 2016
Firstly thank you to the publisher for a free Arc copy of this book on netgalley in return for an honest review. I loved the way it was written with 3 individual stories that all culminated in coming together at the end. I enjoyed each of the characters Rory, Sarah and Mim's all having different personalities and how different each of their 'life problems' were. I would highly recommend this book.
Profile Image for Marisa.
1,614 reviews
October 7, 2016
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC for my honest review.

This was a hard book to get through due to the emotional contents but well done to the author on the story telling and well written book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
484 reviews1 follower
August 16, 2016
This book was more of a women's fiction book rather than romance. The characters are interesting and all experience some character changing situations.
Profile Image for Kim Miller.
109 reviews15 followers
April 5, 2020
This was an interesting read. It cycled through multiple viewpoints and did a great job of juggling those differing views without losing the reader. It kept me engaged and turning the pages
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews

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