Tournament of Books discussion

Space to discuss the 2026 TOB contender The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward.

This just came up for me on Libby. Has anyone read it?

yep, I read it a month or two ago, as it was one of the shortlisted books for the Goldsmiths Prize, and it was great. It gets nicely weird.

Paul wrote: "yep, I read it a month or two ago, as it was one of the shortlisted books for the Goldsmiths Prize, and it was great. It gets nicely weird."

Nicely weird is perfect for me, thanks!

I just started this and ... I don't know, it's not doing it for me. There's something so oddly overwrought about the opening (I'm only a couple chapters in) that I find myself rolling my eyes.

Can someone tell me whether, if I keep going, this everything-dialed-up-to-11-but-with-a-ton-of-static prose is going to be redeemed? Is it serving the story?

This book was absolutely wild. It reminded me what I love about the TOB but have been missing the last couple of years. I thought the author did a great job narrating the audiobook too.

Sherri wrote: "This book was absolutely wild. It reminded me what I love about the TOB but have been missing the last couple of years. I thought the author did a great job narrating the audiobook too."

I just started and I'm struggling with the author's narration. Your comment will help me press on a bit more with the audiobook.

This took me about 50 pages to get into, then I was hooked!

This is a slippery book. I say “slippery” because as soon as I started to feel like I was on stable footing with the story and the characters, they would shift, and I’d become unsettled and confused again. On the downside, the novel felt too long and messy and led to feelings of frustration. On the upside, I appreciated the ample humor and excellent sentence-level writing. Daley-Ward has a very unusual voice, and I loved that.

Erica wrote: "Sherri wrote: "I just started and I'm struggling with the author's narration. Your comment will help me press on a bit more with the audiobook."

I’m really disliking the narration as well, she just sounds so angry and abrupt, it’s like there’s too much stress placed on each syllable. (I know the characters are angry, abrasive people, but I don’t really want to listen to someone snapping at me for 12 hours.) It’s really putting me on edge even though the story is fun. Luckily I have both the audio and ebook from Libby, so I think I’ll have to drop the audio, maybe have my screen read it to me. Even a fake voice would be less grating.

I got over the narration. I think it’s her accent and the harsh way she pronounces Clara. Her mouth sounds wet the whole time, if that makes sense. But maybe after 3 hours, I got over it. Just finished the book. And I loved this one! Wow. 4 stars from me.

I will look forward to hearing more about what people liked about this book, since it didn’t grab me. Usually I like weird, but this one was too messy for me.

The audiobook didn’t work for me either. It seemed like she had marbles in her mouth. And it bugged me that she didn’t use different voices for the different characters which made the confusing narrative even more confusing.

I did, however, love this quote: “I didn’t read your fucking book. It’s 2025. Who has time to read a long fucking book.” Ha!

Perfect! I remember when I could read an 800-1000 page book easy-peasy. In recent years, anything over 400 pages feels like a massive commitment. (That said, The Wayfinder was one of my favorite reads this year!)

I liked the stories of the sisters and that they both grew over the course of the novel, but the end was a giant blob of a mess for me.

Sherri wrote: "This book was absolutely wild. It reminded me what I love about the TOB but have been missing the last couple of years. I thought the author did a great job narrating the audiobook too."

I'm listening to it on audiobook now and I love her narration! That's so rare that an author is a good narrator, unless maybe they're also an actor. haha

Bretnie wrote: "I will look forward to hearing more about what people liked about this book, since it didn’t grab me. Usually I like weird, but this one was too messy for me.

The audiobook didn’t work for me eith..."

I DO get confused about the shifting narration in the audiobook, as it's hard to tell Clara apart from Dempsey so I keep having to go back and figure out who's talking or who that part of the story is about. I feel like those two could be the same character and there's not enough differentiation between them and they both hate each other for being the same person they each are, as if they're projecting.

Now that I'm past the midway point and the book is getting really weird, I'm thinking that might have been done on purpose and that's the whole point maybe. I also get confused when they're telling Serene's story/reading excerpts from the "Evidence" book (?) because it's so much like the daughters' stories and I get confused about whether Clara really did plagiarize her mom's book in trying to write a book about her mom or whether she is just so mentally ill that she just thinks she did.

Sometimes there are things said or done that make it seem like that's reality and other times like it's just in her head. Without having the actual book to read with quotes (although not all authors even use quotation marks around dialogue anymore but there could be other clues), it's really hard to know what's in her head or what's actually happening, what she's thinking versus saying and WHO is thinking/saying/doing what.

It's pretty trippy though so I still like it and I think it's kind of fun to figure out what is really going on and maybe the whole point is that we're not supposed to be able to? I feel like all three of them are the same person and maybe the weirdo therapist lady and the pregnant literary agent/PR lady or whatever are too. And I have no idea who TF Veronica or Victoria ("V") is but so far she seems like the same character as Serene.

I kinda love it but it's also very frustrating to try to make sense of. If I stop trying to do that and just go with it, I like it more, lol.

Also I do like how meta it is and like the quote you mentioned, how it's always talking about writers, readers and the process of writing or analyzing or reading (or not! haha) a book. I enjoy pretending I'm a "famous author who is about to become even more famous" (like Serene said about Clara to the sales clerk who was like, "you go girl!" lol) and giving readings and Q&As like Clara does.

I like the crazy answers Clara gives and the rants she goes into on stage and such and I can see why readers would like her and why Serene would suggest she get more involved on social media and interact with the public more to get more attention. I think that part is some kind of commentary on how being an author in the modern world also involves being a quasi-celebrity or social media influencer and the things we do to make money or gain attention in this uber-capitalist world. (Even the therapist's parts can tie into this theme.)

I also think it might be saying something about how we never really know someone unless we really know them and get really close to them and then we feel like it's TOO close or an invasion of personal space and boundaries so all we really have is ourselves, and maybe our mothers or the lack thereof, when it comes to forging our own path and developing our own identities because we can be a million different people or personalities (such as her BDP diagnosis) in one and we can shape-shift into who we want others to see us being when we're interacting with them. I like how Serene keeps looking like Dempsey to Clara and how sometimes Clara feels like being around Serene makes her act and sound in a way that is turning HER into Dempsey (like with the PR lady Emma).

I don't know, I just dig it but it's also way too crazy for me to be able to follow so I just start wondering what it all could possibly mean. I wish I could meet the author and ask her and maybe she will give me awesome crazy nonsense answers like Clara does to her readers and that would make the experience even more meta!

I think that after I finish the audiobook I'll read the actual book or eBook and see if that can give me any more clues or if I can make any more sense out of it. But maybe all the fun is in NOT making sense out of it and that would make me like the book less instead of more? LOL

This was too much of a jumbled mess for me.

I haven't read any of the popular heavy hitters like "Endling" or "The Director" yet, but this is by far my favorite read thus far!

I was not expecting to enjoy it, but the amount of characterization that went into the three main characters and their different but connected perspectives really made this story work!

Reading it is definitely a much better experience than listening to it on audio, though.