The Spectacular

by Zoe Whittall

The Spectacular begins in the late 1990s. Ruth is 80 and secretly enjoying a hot affair with a widower neighbour in suburban Montreal when she finds out she is dying. She decides to throw herself a farewell party in the seaside village where she spent her childhood, on the Aegean, in Turkey. She hopes to take along Missy, her granddaughter, a cello player in a notorious art-rock orchestra experiencing a wave of commercial success. Missy doesn’t want to stop touring; she’s happy traveling with her best friends, and has a lover in almost every city.But she’s forced to leave the tour after an incident at the border involving a forgotten flap of cocaine. She reluctantly joins Ruth on her journey, even though they disagree in almost every way about what a woman should expect from life—something that keeps them from telling each other a secret that could bring them closer together. We follow Missy and Ruth during three crucial turning points in their lives, via several interlocking narratives, as they negotiate who they wish they could be in a world that doesn’t always give them that freedom.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, LGBT, Queer, Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Book Club

Paperback

First published September 14, 2021

About the author

Zoe Whittall's latest novel, The Best Kind of People, spent 26 consecutive weeks on the Globe bestseller list, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, was Indigo Best Book of the Year, Heather's Pick, Globe and Mail Best Book, Toronto Life Best Book of 2016, Walrus Magazine Best Book of 2016 . The film/TV rights have been optioned by Sarah Polley who will write and direct. She has two previous novels and three collections of poetry, and has written for the televisions shows Degrassi, Schitt's Creek, and The Baroness Von Sketch Show. She won the KM Hunter award for literature, and a Lamda Literary award for her second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible. Her debut, Bottle Rocket Hearts, was named one of the top ten novels of the decade by CBC Canada Reads, and one of the Best Books of 2007 by The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire magazine. She has published three books of poetry, Precordial Thump, (exile, 08) The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan Books, 01) and The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare Books, 06.) The Globe and Mail called her "the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…”. She was born in South Durham, Quebec, resided in Montreal during the early 1990s and has lived in Toronto since 1997.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is a look back at the changing gender revolutions going on in the 1980s and 90s. It looks at three generations of women and how their lives have played out. Missy is 22, the lead singer in a band out on tour. She’s not managing her life particularly well - pregnant, doing drugs, having sex with all and sundry. Her mother, Carola, had walked out of her life on a commune when her daughter was just a child, leaving Missy behind. In 1997, she’s caught up in a sex scandal at an ashram. Ruth is 83, having been a real presence in Missy’s life and having introduced her to the cello.
I wasn’t sure what to make of any of these women. All are trying to find their “authentic lives”, to quote the book description. But what happens when seeking your best life means hurting others? All at various times are called on to make decisions about being a mother.
The book felt divided in half and I much preferred the first half. The second half moves to 2013. Ruth is dead, Carola is some sort of self awareness guru, Missy all of a sudden wants to be a mother. The first half of the book seemed much edgier. It tackled the idea that not everyone wants to or should be a mother. Now, we’re subjected to Missy’s ticking biological clock. It seemed to meander more in the second half.
The problem I had was that I never quite connected with any of the women for long periods of time. Having never wanted my own children, I expected to connect, given the way the book started. But the second half of the book was such an about face, it threw me.
This was just an ok story. Nothing special. Nothing to deserve the title. It didn’t live up to my expectations after what I thought was a really strong opening.
My thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an advance copy of this book.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall is a women’s fiction novel featuring three generations of women. The story in The Spectacular is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters and by changing timelines going back to the past and also a jump further into the future from the current time.

The story begins in 1997 with twenty two year old Missy. Missy grew up in a commune never having known her mother and is now in an indie rock band traveling the world. Missy wants nothing to do with motherhood and only wants to live freely like her male bandmates.

Carola is Missy’s mother and hasn’t seen her daughter in years since she left her at the commune. Now in her forties Carola sees her daughter on the cover of a magazine. Eighty three year old Ruth is Missy’s grandmother and when Missy pops into her life she thinks it’s time for the family to begin to understand one another.

I have to say I picked up The Spectacular because I read The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall and really enjoyed it. After reading The Spectacular I felt that it wasn’t nearly as engaging for me though. The story is kind of all over the place in terms of time and the first half seemed a bit more smooth than the second. It was interesting seeing how different the characters were but the ending left a little to be desired for me so overall I just felt this was only an OK read.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

As this story begins, it’s 1997 and Missy Alamo is a bit of a wild child at the age of 22, she’s the only female member of an indie rock band, who is at the moment stuck alone in a Vancouver hotel room. She’s missing the high from being onstage, the adulation. Now she’s alone, pregnant, with a throbbing ankle, with a hangover. Since her mother left without much of a goodbye, Missy isn’t interested in repeating the pattern. She picks up the newspaper left in the room and sees the headline Sex Scandal at Ashram, along with a photo of a group of ‘hippie ladies’ - a term I’m pretty sure, even at the time, would not have been used. She scans the photo and finds her mother, Carola, among them. Her mother, who walked away from Missy’s father and Missy when she was a child for another life. Later on, Carola’s mother-in-law and Missy’s grandmother, Ruth, enters this story.

The story is shared among these three women, their stories are as different as they are. Missy has never understood her mother’s reasons for leaving, but loves her grandmother. Their stories are messy. Life is messy.

Unsurprisingly, this is a story that focuses on the emerging themes associated with each of these generations. Perhaps the ‘hippie generation’ didn’t invent the concept of ‘free love’ but it is a term attributed to them. Their parents, slightly less likely to have had sex before marriage, let alone multiple partners before marriage. After marriage? That’s another story. The desire, or lack of desire to have children, and the responsibility that comes with parenthood. Gender identity/fluidity is another theme as the years pass and we enter a more current time.

These eras, these individual stories are shared separately but the voices aren’t distinct, which works better at times than others. Sometimes it flows beautifully, more often - for me - it muddles things, leaving me perplexed.

At the heart of this story lies the central concept that life should be lived life on one’s own terms, but each generation creates their own terms, rejecting former mores. That’s how life evolves. It’s messy.


Published: 14 Sep 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful character-driven novel about three generations of women, all deeply felt and empathetically drawn. Motherhood, abortion, sexuality, career, belonging, friendship, and family relationships are all recurrent themes, all of which are handled with care and complexity. I haven't read a novel in a long time like this that felt so truly like it was about real people, a real slice of life in two time periods, the 1990s and 2010s.

I loved the way Whittall dealt with the character Missy's bisexuality as a woman who took a long time to come into her queerness, only really coming out in her late 30s. Her mother, Carola, is an amazing portrait of a so-called 'bad mom'.

Incredible audiobook performances by different actors for each main character.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spectacular presupposes its own expectations. It would be hugely ironic and quite sad for the novel with a title like that to turn out to be a middling mediocrity. And sure enough, it begins spectacularly…boldly, excitingly, it promises all the spectacular things, poised on a brink of awesomeness like Missy, the protagonist (well, one of them) herself.
It begins like this…a 21 year old musician about to set off on tour with her punk band tries desperately to do the responsible thing and have her tubes tied. Because she wants to party her way through the tour like a proper punk, because she doesn’t trust the partners she (quite indiscriminately) chooses or herself or condoms, because she hasn’t had the kind of nurturing experience with her own mother and it’s left her convinced she shall never want kinds of her own. Missy has many very reasonable reasons.
And because it’s 1997 and because our society is then as it is now very patriarchal and sexist and because America in many ways has always been true to its puritanical ways of yore no one is willing to help her and she is constantly and consistently told she will later change her mind and give in to her biology.
And so Missy goes on the tour with her tubes free and untied and promptly gets knocked up.
Meanwhile her storyline alternates with that of her estranged mother, Carola, whose hippieesque ways (as a form of her rebellion against her own strict and repressed mother) have led her from city life to a commune to a yoga cult. Carola is an interesting character, because although she did become a mother at a young age and in spite of her many reservations, she has never quite taken to it naturally and eventually left it altogether, her marriage, her commune, her daughter…in what seems like a profoundly selfish act which in fact for her was pure self preservation.
And then there’s a sidebar of Ruth, Missy’s father’s mother, whose life is briefly (page percentage wise) recollected as she is getting ready to wrap it all up and let it all go. Ruth has had been married to a blatant cheater and her only joy in life has been her son and then his daughter, Missy.
So the first section of the novel presets the stage for a fascinating multigenerational drama of unhappy marriages and challenging motherhoods. It’s so well written and engaging that you don’t even need to like or relate to characters to completely immerse yourself in their journeys. Plus it has such a strikingly original and (it shouldn’t be but it is) bold message of…maybe not everyone is cut out to be a mother and that’s ok.
And then the novel skips time, 16 years of it, and becomes every clichés out of the women’s fiction playbook Sure, it’s more hip, more queer, more challenging than most of those, but the bottom line is babies, babies, babies. Everyone wants then, everyone needs them, they give life meaning in the way no other thing or person can, etc.
It’s almost as if the author just plopped her ovaries on her keyboard for the second section of the book, set her metronome to biological clock and went to town on it. All the originality of the initial premise, all the bold subversive dynamics of it…thrown right out of the proverbial window. It’s so hugely, spectacularly disappointing. And it pretty much eclipses all other aspects of the novel. Which is a crying shame, because it’s so good otherwise. There are such clever parallels between all the female characters in the book, the ways their choices sort of echo each other through the years, from abandoning pursuit of former education to finding love late in life, etc. But in the end, it’s an estrogen party through and through, with diapers all over it.
What began as such a fun and awesome book, because yet another baby book. And this novel will work for you in direct proportion to where you are on the babies subject. Which means for me it didn’t do all that much and certainly not as much as it might have. Loved the writing, loved the character development, didn’t care for the message. But if you’re looking for a perfect Mother’s day read about imperfect mothers, this is for you Thanks Netgalley.

This and more at https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Motherhood is a mental illness -Ramona from the movie Hustlers

The book opens with twenty-two years old Missy, who is a cellist in an indie rock band that is about to go on Tour, wanting to get her tubes tied. She wants to have the freedom of going on tour without having to worry about getting pregnant and as someone who was abandoned by her mother, she really does not want to have children. Of course, all the clinics and doctors she visited refuses to grant her wish because they “know” she will change her mind. Yes, she is twenty two but Missy is determined to live a life filled with freedom and doing everything men get to do.

Carola, Missy’s mom, is on her way to the police station to file a complaint after being involved with a sex scandal at a yoga center. Carola was drawn to the older yoga instructor who turned out to be having sex and grooming everyone at the center. While she goes to file the complaint, Carola sees her daughter on the cover of a music magazine, this is the first time she sees her in over 10 years. Carola, who grew up wanting to change the world, got pregnant with Missy and felt trapped. She tried being there, but felt more free not having the responsibility of raising a child.

Eighty-three year old Ruth fled from Turkey to America decades ago, met and married a man who could not commit to her, even though he tried. With Missy, her granddaughter touring America, Ruth have a lot of time to think on how she wants proceed with the next phase of her life, especially having been diagnosed with a fatal illness. Ruth’s one last wish is to have Carol and Missy meet to see if they are start working through their problems. The meeting goes worse than Ruth expects….

I absolutely loved this book! Three generation of women showcasing what freedom and having power over their uterus looks like- I was here for it! I feel like we don’t read enough about young women who don’t want children, women who have children and feel trapped so they leave and older women who decided they will only have one child because they don’t want anymore. I felt the author did a brilliant job of capturing mother-daughter relationships, what freedom looks like for each woman, and how society pressures women to fit in a certain box. The themes are explored in such a nuanced and interesting way. A solid read.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Harper Collins Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I couldn’t put this novel down, it was just compulsively readable and so engrossing, pulling you in different directions. What starts out as a kick-ass novel ends in a different kind of kick-ass life.

This book is told with mostly two POVs (but at one point, we get a third POV). We learn about how these three women have been affected just because of the time they’re born in. We see the different societal expectations and how they must each live up to them ... and how they fail.

The parallels between Missy, her mom Carola, and Missy’s grandmother is beautiful to read about, but also sad.

This book might not end in the way you expect it to, but I think we get a great ending with a lot of character development, love, and acceptance.

Definitely a must-read!

[CanadianReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

In her new (fourth) novel, Canadian writer Zoe Whittall explores matters of female autonomy, self-actualization, sexuality/sexual identity, and motherhood. She presents the story from the first-person point of view of three related women: Melissa (“Missy”) Wood; her mother Carola; and Missy’s paternal grandmother, Ruth. The novel opens in 1997, but moves backwards and forwards in time. We’re introduced to the main character, twenty-one-year-old Missy first, as she goes from one women’s health clinic to the next, demanding a tubal ligation. She wants the same sexual freedom as the men in the indie band she’s about to tour the US with. Missy has a lover in almost every major city, she has no appetite for commitment to anyone but herself, and zero interest in becoming a mother. At every clinic, she’s rejected for the sterilization surgery because of her age. She could change her mind, say all the doctors.

In the subsequent chapters that concern her, we learn of her wildly hedonistic life on the road with the guys. These sections are full of graphic descriptions of sexual encounters and drug use, with a fair number of other sordid details to boot. Though I understood that Whittall was likely wanting to contrast attitudes of women who came of age at different times, I found little to like or interest me in Missy from the get-go and I liked the explicit sex scenes even less. These were possibly informed by the author’s generation’s exposure to online porn. I considered bailing on the novel, but persisted to see if Whittall would move on from that material when providing the perspectives of the older women. I was relieved and more interested in the book when she did. Still, that couldn’t ultimately redeem this novel for me.

The story itself seemed to have a certain potential: Missy grew up on a Vermont commune, an “intentional community” called Sunflower, founded by her mother, father, and another couple. When we get Missy’s mother’s perspective, we learn that Carola felt intense ambivalence about motherhood practically from the moment she conceived her daughter. Although she feared she’d made a serious error, she managed to suppress the anxiety, dutifully playing the role of mother for more than a decade. (She ferried her daughter and another girl on the commune to town for mainstream medical care, even having the children secretly vaccinated.) However, her sense of constriction and unease only grew over the years. When her child was about to enter grade eight, Carola left the commune without notice, ultimately landing at a New Hampshire ashram, determined to live a life of service that would help her “find herself” and provide expiation. Carola’s narrative explores not only the troubles at the ashram including a now almost cliché story of a guru who sexually exploits his followers but also the challenges of her own childhood and youth. Elderly Ruth’s story is one of displacement and marital unhappiness. Born to well-to-do British parents in Turkey, Ruth and her family fled Smyrna when war broke out in the early 1920s and the Anatolian city burned. In the 1950s, Ruth and her husband, Frank, ended up in Montreal, with Frank’s mistress installed just down the street.

For me Missy, who is clearly at the centre of this novel, is its weakest link. In the last third of the book, set over fifteen years after the earlier sections, Missy has undergone a major, inexplicable transformation. First of all, she has married. The reader is given no clue as to how this came about. But even more surprisingly, she’s moved from full rejection of motherhood to an almost irrational compulsion to reproduce in her late thirties. What does remain consistent is that she’ll have sex with anyone to make this happen—even an Uber driver. There’s a ton of gender ideology nonsense in this last bit, including a character met at a bar who uses the third person plural pronoun. I refuse to buy into the madness of crowds and the current delusional thinking and refer to any single person as “they” and “them”. This is the first book I’ve read that appears to expect me to do this. Whittall’s writing, which is initially hardly “spectacular” early on, is at least serviceable. At the end, it reads— at both the syntax and content levels— like something thrown together by a teenager in a writers’ workshop.

I went into the book knowing nothing about Whittall, other than that she gained some celebrity in Canada at the time her third novel came out. I often go into a novel cold, knowing little about the plot and usually disregarding the blurbs. Sometimes, though, readers should pay attention to who writes those blurbs. I know I ought to have this time around. Seeing Torrey Peter’s glowing praise on the cover should have cinched it for me. The vulgar epigraphs and the dedication were further warnings that I failed to heed. I can’t imagine anyone thinking this was a good book.

[Ariel ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will get into this in more detail someday, I'm sure, but there is such a pervasive trope present in books that claim to be super queer but are basically 90% graphic hetero sex.

Overall, I hated it. It was grating. I normally enjoy books that follow multiple protagonists and skip between time periods, but the time skips in this story were difficult to follow. I often felt like I was dropped in the middle of a completely different book. I'd go back a few pages to make sure I didn't accidentally miss something.

I initially enjoyed how the book tackled conversations around the Motherhood Mandate (not a term used in the book) and the difficulty women have controlling their reproductive lives, but the back quarter of the book annihilated all that progressive messaging by upholding classic stereotypes about childfree regret and "the biological clock." It's not every piece of fiction's duty to fight misogynistic stereotypes or provide positive representation for marginalized people, but this book was quite literally a bait-and-switch. The intergenerational family relationship piece felt flat, and the ending was very Hallmark (derogatory).

[Geonn Cannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up, because I really wish I'd liked this a lot more than I ended up liking it. It starts very strong, and I loved the Missy chapters, but by the end I was just kind of... I don't know, the steam ran out and I didn't really care about anyone as much as I had at the beginning. The excitement dwindled until I was finally grateful to just reach the end. I think one problem was that I felt it skipped too much time at one point, and it never recovered from that fumble. But rounding it up because the writing was good, and the story had potential. I'm willing to concede I just lost interest because of personal taste.

[Shannon Rochester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my digital copy in exchange for my honest opinion. I really don't remember what made me request this one as the cover isn't eye drawing for me and I almost never actually read the blurbs about the book anymore...anyway, the book is told by more than one point of view and normally that might throw me off but in this case, it worked well. We get to see what life is/was like for three generations of women. Missy, her mother, and her grandmother. We learn of their hopes and dreams and how the expectations of society differ for each of the women...I really liked it a lot as there was so much growth and change throughout...

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far everyone else has seemed to love this book, so clearly I'm in the minority here. I got tired of Missy's back and forth about having a baby, and I wasn't particularly interested in Carola's story. I wanted more from Ruth, but sadly it didn't happen. For some reason after reading the current synopsis I thought that this book would be different from what it was.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jamele (BookswithJams) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just ok for me, it is a multi-generational story and told in the POV's of Missy, Carola, and Ruth. I enjoyed Carola's story the most as Missy's storyline / character overall annoyed me and there wasn't any real growth from until the very end. Ruth seemed more of an afterthought by the time her POV was introduced, so it was odd and maybe it was because I listened to this via audio and the introduction of a different narrator so late in the story was a bit jarring or maybe I wasn't vested enough, I don't know. By the end it was all coming together when there was a reunion, but it was a bit late for me. Because of that this was average overall but engaging enough for me to keep going to see how it would end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the digital galley to review.

[Rine Bekkelund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Redigert: jeg tenker så mye på denne boka at jeg måtte endre den til fem

Jeg vipper mellom tre og fire stjerner. Tror det er fordi den utvikler seg i en retning jeg ikke forventet, men ikke på en plot twist måte. Bare litt som om forfatteren har ombestemt seg litt. Men samtidig er det deler av den som kommer til å bli med meg en liten stund. Den føltes på en måte veldig scattered og på en annen måte veldig samlet. Klarer ikke å forklare det. Uansett, tittelen skjønte jeg ingenting av.

[Sara Hughes · Rating 1 out of 5]

i have to abandon this, it’s so insanely cringey and dreadful. i feel like it was written by a 15 year old, but 15 year olds are actually more clever. the chapters about the touring band are incredibly embarrassing and annoying, and i say this as someone who has been on tour many times. i cant fathom how people are giving this good reviews, one star is being generous.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every mother a willing mother. That is the core of this incredible book that follows three generations of women and their journeys with motherhood - both the wanting and not wanting of it. I really, really loved how layered and nuanced the author writes about each woman's life and choices. Particularly timely in light of the reversal of Roe v Wade, the importance of women actually having the ability to choose when and if they become mothers has never been more urgent. Great on audio and highly recommended for fans of books like Heather Marshall's Looking for Jane.

CW: abortion, infertility

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a multi-generational story about three different generations of women (Missy, Carola, and Ruth) who are forced to explore their sexuality, gender, and decisions around having children. The story spans over time between 1910 1922 and leads up to 2015. It looks at the idea of the three characters and whether or not they want to have kids at three different points in their lives. At one point, they each make a choice, and we find out why and what led up to the decision. It's also a story about sexual autonomy, attachment, and motherhood.

I loved the opening scene where all the doctors try to dissuade Missy from having her tubes tied because she's young. This sets the stage for how she came to be and shows us all the different vantage points of everything. This whole question of, are you really in control of our reproduction? weaves through each story and connects throughout the book.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/zoe...

[Sasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

On paper this is totally my kind of thing but I found it so aimless yet heavy handed.

[Lauren Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why people don’t like this book. Like I haven’t looked at reviews, and I’m not plugged in enough to know. But I really liked this book. Because motherhood, rock and roll, sex, and parenting ambivalence are all topics I’m drawn to, and because the tough parts of this book (miscarriage, addiction, intergenerational trauma, suicide, cancer) are things I’m always happy to see reflected back to me in books.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

The evolution and change of these real people was fluid and what life really looks like at least to me.

We orbit through three generations of women's lives, through their choices, needs, wants, mistakes, hopes, dreams, pain, misery, growth and evolution to the next steps on their path.

How to even describe Ruth, Carola, and Melissa (Ruth, Juniper and Missy). They each struggled in their relationships and marriages and were taken advantage of or taken care of going into the next relationships. They were each strong independent women until they were not. They each had such strong ideas of the world and their path, then life experiences and change made those ideas different.

The decisions that these women could and could not make with their own lives and bodies because they are women is an ongoing struggle and fight in this country (I am looking at you Texas!) and the world.

I enjoyed the relationships in this book though some were heartbreaking, some found their love the second time around, it's ok to not work together, it isn't a failure. People change there is only one life you can move on and be friends but cmon dont cheat!

I loved Missy's timeline for how strong she was and her encounter with Andie and how that changed her outlook on her sexuality. How she started off wanting an abortion than in her 40's wanting a baby. I will tell you hormones are crazy. (I thought breastfeeding sounded gross in a new mom class one weekend, then a few days later my 1st came a month early and I got a rush of new hormones and mama bear deep voice whipped my boob out and said give her to me, my tiny 3 pd baby). Not every woman can be or wants to be a mother. Sometimes it's overwhelming emotionally or financially.

I felt these 3 women's pain across their timelines, their need for connection, their need to run away but want to be found, I wanted to slap all the men they chose to be with.

Thank you randomhouse and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

[Joshie Nicole readwithjoshie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Harper Collins Canada for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Like The Best Kind of People, The Spectacular wastes no time getting into the gritty, raw characters of Missy, Carola, and Ruth. I am such a sucker for strong female protagonists, and watching as each of these women navigated situations that were less than desirable (a terminal illness, an unwanted pregnancy, and a toxic relationship with a romantic partner and motherhood) was a fascinating and rewarding journey for this reader. I felt like I knew these women – Whittall exposes them completely and I adored them from beginning to end (even when I was frustrated with them).

This novel features queer, nonbinary, and trans representation, and a lot of unapologetic sex from the main female characters (something that I find to be rare, but wonderful, in literature). I loved exploring themes of what it means to be a mother (and to want to be a mother), relationships & love (in all its forms – from familial, to self, to friendship, to romantic), desire, and identity. I adored this novel. I loved the way that Whittall explored the expectations placed upon women and how they carefully and intentionally defied them and reshaped them to fit their needs. Missy is a character that I won’t soon forget. There is something that just works for me when it comes to Whittall’s prose. To me, this novel was propulsive with just enough plot development layered in with the deep character development that I love so much in my literature.

If you have liked Whittall’s other work, you’ll want to pick this one up.

Out August 24, 2021.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messy people being sloppy - tales that Sam loves.

[Aliciapinksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. An interesting exploration of motherhood across multiple generations in some interesting settings including the 90s punk rock era and a yoga ashram. There was a shift in one of the characters in the final third of the book that I didn’t quite buy into their motivation but otherwise an enjoyable read.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started so strong. But then it seemed to lose focus. Or my attention wandered. Whatever. And then it had a plot twist that I really wish it didn’t have. Very frustrating as it played into some problematic narratives. Queer and trans representation was great though.

[inquillery · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️s rounded up to 5!

Thank you so much to Harper Collins Canada for sending me an ARC in exchange for review.

The Spectacular follows three women as they grapple with questions of gender, sexuality, and motherhood.

Always gripping, often challenging, and finally beautiful, I found this book to be a refreshingly blunt look at womanhood. While I was sometimes scandalized by the characters’ frank depictions of their sex lives, failures, and dark emotions, I felt it was a worthwhile adventure into spaces many women aren’t able to comfortably speak about (but that most of us experience). With three POV characters, this book was able to tackle some intense and controversial topics with nuance as each woman responded to similar (or the same) experiences in her own way. While the plot follows ordinary life, the title points to what we are all searching for in the mundane: the spectacular.

My only complaint is that I felt the middle (particularly after a significant time jump) was a little slow. Otherwise it would have been five stars for me!

The Spectacular comes out August 24, 2021.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Spectacular has several wheels turning at once: those of the three generations of women the story follows. It feels primarily like Missy's story, the protagonist punk rock musician who we meet when she's at the brink of success in her rebellious 20s. It makes sense that her mother and grandmother are woven into her story as our other narrators. Whittall's execution of this is masterful: she manages to give Ruth and Carola/Juniper their own voices, backstories, and depth of personality while adding to Missy's story (as well as each others).

The story I read felt slightly different than the summary blurb (on the advanced reader's copy I received from the publisher), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a little difficult to pin this story down without spoiling too much of the family's experience. Each woman led very different lives, yet they were brought together by basic tenets of family and the struggles we often face behind closed doors. The women struggled with sexuality, relationships, family, finding yourself- a variety of experiences we've all shared despite their differences.

The Spectacular was a slowly addicting read, full of conflicts and love, succeeding and failing, and reexamining the failures we've all made in a new light. The relatable, complex characters carried their difficult stories not with ease but with strength, which gives any reader something to hold onto.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE SPECTACULAR by Zoe Whittall is an amazing novel that I loved!! It’s about Missy, who’s in a band, and her mother, Carola. I loved the strong female voice in the writing and the exploration of the mother and daughter relationship. I also loved the queer and trans representation and the expansive timeline and age range in the characters. I found myself completely taken away with these characters and got kinda emotional reading the ending. I really enjoyed all the themes brought up in this book including feminism, womanhood, motherhood, coming of age and finding yourself. I liked the way this story was told in parts moving forward through time and switching between points of view. I really recommend this one and I love the colourful cover!
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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for my uncorrected proof!

[Deanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Book - The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall
The Tea - La La Lavender White Tea by @sipology

What I thought would happen - the synopsis of the book had me thinking this was a going to be a hilarious book featuring sex, drugs and rock and roll.

What really happened - 3 generations of women live life on their own terms linked by unwanted pregnancies and their tentative relationships to each other.

We’ll sort of? Maybe? For the first 2/3 of the book, I thought that was what this book was about. The unfair balance of a woman’s commitment to parenting versus that of their male counterparts. But then the book took a twist and maybe this book was about freedom - to give life, to live life and to end life? It got pretty busy though with a lot of characters and a lot of drama and I felt there were unanswered questions. Anybody else feel this way? I would love to chat!

Tea with Dee Spilling the Tea.
I felt very upset that Carola left Missy and then she never said why! I strongly believe it is our role as a mother to commit to raising that child until they are ready to leave you. Is that fair? I don’t know but that is our job, should we choose to take on the role of motherhood. Choosing to become a mother is a choice. Leaving before your job is done should not be a choice. Once you choose to become a mother, then you have to pour in your love, your time, and your attention, until that day when they move on. We don’t leave them; they leave us. And I am also of the opinion this one sided commitment does not include a balance sheet of what their father does - he is on his own to form that bond.

So while the book started with a real eye opener (the imbalance between the genders related to birth control), I found myself more frustrated than entertained or enlightened and can only rate this book 3 ⭐️. The tea though - so much flavour with the perfect balance of herbal and floral tastes - and so pretty too. This tea gets 5 ⭐️.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novel about motherhood in all of its forms, and how important it is for women to control whether and when they become mothers. Each character rejects and chooses motherhood in different ways, with different support systems, and with very different approaches. Whittall does a great job of revealing each woman's reasons for abortion, and how they got their abortions, emphasizing the need for safe and legal abortion on demand. This would be a great selection for book clubs and for parent-child reading.

[Emma Côté · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 - I LOVED the first half of this book. However, Missy's major switch from wanting to be sterilized to having such intense baby fever that she was willing to get knocked up by her Uber driver (by which I just mean a total stranger genetically) was jarring. It felt like it undid all the groundwork that was put in place to make a statement about life not needing to revolve around children. We desperately need more books about women who are childfree and still living happily ever after. Going into this book I thought this would be one of them, so I was disappointed to find out it wasn't.