Told through alternating perspectives of several residents in a series of interconnected fragments,
Liquid, Fragile, Perishable by Carolyn Kuebler is a quiet, slower-paced, character-driven novel that paints a compelling portrait of life in a small New England town.

The story begins in the summer that the Calper family moves to Glenville from New York. Willoughby “Will” Calper, set to attend college after the summer is over, falls in love with Honey Mitchell, the teenage daughter of a family of beekeepers. Honey is homeschooled, her family old-school, and their involvement, which they hide from their respective families, is only one of a series of events that send a ripple through the close-knit community.

The narrative takes us into the hearts and minds of the residents over the course of year, not just Honey and Will and their families but also Honey’s friends, older and younger residents of the community, families that form the backbone of the community and those deemed as disruptive. As the narrative progresses, we get to know more about the characters- their individual struggles, regrets and tragedies, disparities and conflicts within the community, love and friendships and the ties that bind the community together.

The writing is beautiful yet sparse, often adopting a matter-of-fact tone, with no excesses. I loved the setting, but though the cast of characters was well thought out, I was a tad disappointed with character development. There are several characters we meet in the course of this novel, and while the trajectories of a few of the characters do provide a sense of closure, the same can’t be said for the rest. Perhaps fewer characters sharing the narrative would have allowed us to get to know them better. Though a few of the threads in the narrative ended abruptly, I did enjoy the story overall.

I read an ARC of the novel and I am unaware whether there are any structural changes to the novel in the finished copy. Each segment begins without telling us whose perspective is being presented until we start reading, which took some time to get accustomed to, and the abrupt transitions did detract from the overall reading experience.

Overall, this is a beautifully written novel with a captivating setting and interesting characters that I did enjoy, just maybe not as much as I had hoped. However, I would be eager to read more from this author in the future.

Many thanks to Melville House Publishing for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Liquid, Fragile, Perishable was published on May 14, 2024.

Rating: 3.75?

Connect with me! ? Instagram ? My Blog ? The StoryGraphnetgalley-arc68 s14 comments Rita Egan394 46

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable
by Carolyn Kuebler

A quietly addictive debut that takes us through a year in the life of a small town in Vermont. Told in interconnected vignettes we follow the townspeople through their daily tasks, their conversations, their hopes and dreams and their worries about everything from what to plan for dinner to global catastrophe.

It's a long time since I have read a book where I felt so invested in every single character, even the ones that don't seem capable of making good decisions at first glance.

Christian bee-keepers, the family that own the local wedding venue inn, the family that spell trouble, the New Yorkers that have relocated in the hope of living a more fulfilling life, a teenage boy and three teenage girls, a woman who is struggling in isolation, the propane delivery man who feels compelled to keep an eye out for her, and the woman who is hoping her post office job will avoid redundancy.

Things happen, but give it time. This is a gentle dawdle through the woods taking in nature and contemplating human nature, so don't pick this up looking for big thrills. It's character driven fiction at it's best, hard to put down, always beckoning the reader back to see what's happening next.

Comps that spring to mind are Ethan Joella, Elizabeth Strout with a pinch of Marilynn Robinson. Highly recommend to anyone who loves to sink into a slow read with a hearty payoff.

US Publication date: 14th May 2024
Thanks to #Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.edelweiss5 s Amy173

My thanks to NetGalley and Melville House for the opportunity to read this ARC of Carolyn Keebler’s Liquid, Fragile, Perishable.

This novel is probably going to show up on awards short lists and best of lists for 2024. Written in free indirect discourse, Kuebler immerses the reader in the small Vermont town of Glenville and the lives of its inhabitants. Evoking Virginia Woolf’s ability in To the Lighthouse to move the reader through the interiority of a host of characters, Kuebler’s novel imagines the human ecology of the space, a human hive composed of work, mating, dying, coming and going, parents and offspring, delight and tragedy, fear and hope. There is no protagonist here, but Kuebler crafts a virtuosic glimpse into one slice of lives lived in America now, complete with extreme socioeconomic disparities, street drugs made, sold, and abused, families living together and all on separate paths, climate concerns, and more. I will read this novel again, and I will ly teach it. It’s golden and gorgeous and rich as the honey sold by one of the farming families in its narrative. Liquid, Fragile, Perishable will be one to watch for in Spring 2024!4 s Beth Deese111 2

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable
Carolyn Kuebler

I was very intrigued by the premise of this book
and the interesting cast of characters. A young teenage girl, Honey, raised on a beekeeping farm in Vermont by evangelical parents meets a boy, Will, one summer who is new to town and straight from NYC. Two different worlds colliding. Her folks, his folks, their small town life banging up against his family’s urban history.

But unfortunately, this intriguing storyline was only minimally explored and wound up feeling it really wasn’t about them or their love relationship. Big opportunity missed!

Their story unfolds via many different voices, and while I could see the appeal of telling a story of how Honey and Will’s situation was perceived by others, it was confusing and unsatisfying for me. There was never enough in depth character analysis or time to get accustomed to each character’s voice. I wanted more of each persons story! But i appreciated the fact that Kuebler’s writing was strong enough to make me
want more!

The supporting cast was oddly the main cast because we barely heard from Honey or Will. Every couple of pages there was an abrupt change to a new voice, a different time, often days, weeks or even months later. Kuebler gave us two other teenage girls that were friends of Honey, their parents, multiple siblings and side characters including a postal worker and a random lady named Nell and her love interest Len who barely interacts with the rest of the characters. It was just too much and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was who and where we were in the story. It was distracting and frustrating.

I did appreciate that the writing quality is truly good enough to pull you into to each person’s interior world and get you invested in their lives. I loved the unique voices and different age ranges. That is talent to paint so many diverse characters well enough to draw you in.

Yet by doing too much, this book did too little. I honestly enjoyed the characters but they were too underdeveloped and not fully linked in to the main storyline. One character, Cyrus, has zero involvement with Will or Honey and their story arc. He’s full of angst and interesting story angles but his story is put out there for us and then never told. He’s just left swinging in the wind at the end! so frustrating! Truthfully Joanne the postal worker and Cyrus’s characters could be cut completely so more of Sophie, Eli, and Sarah’s story could shine.

Also, I would suggest better headings and a way to make the timeline and character changes less jarring. I struggled to follow the changes.

When I read a book, I want to take something away from it that made me think or let me live the life of a person I’d never meet. This book almost got there and absolutely Kuebler has that special something to paint a world in high def that makes it come alive. With better organization, less characters and more unification, I think this book could have gotten there but just didn’t in the end.3 s1 comment Bill Silva805 20

Some nice writing here and there, but there are too many characters and storylines—none of them that original or compelling—and the central conflicts are insufficiently developed or explored. 2 s Kara66 1 follower

BOOK REVIEW
Liquid, Fragile, Perishable by Carolyn Kuebler

This beautiful cover is what immediately drew me in. I mean, just look at it? It’s STUNNING.

I stayed for the small town familial expectations I had for this novel. Set in small town Vermont, Liquid, Fragile, Perishable follows 3 families and the journey their stories take to intermingle. Here, you have a new family that just moved into a small town, families that have been around for years, old school Christian families, and young love.

Kuebler is an excellent writer. She does an amazing job of bringing together the small town feel: the gossip and the drama where everyone knows everyone, the community during hard times. And as someone who grew up in a small town, it all felt very familiar.

That being said, with all of these families getting their stories told, character development wasn’t as in depth as I would have d. I would have looooooved to have gotten more on Honey and Will (no spoilers!!—you’ll have to read it to find out ;) ). I loved learning about the small town dynamics, but the lack of real character depth was a miss for me.

Despite this, I really enjoyed reading this novel. Carolyn Kuebler, in her debut, crafts an objectively beautiful story and I would eagerly read more of her work! Carolyn Kuebler makes her debut next year with an expected release date of May 7 2024.

Thank you netgalley and Melville House Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating 3.5 Stars1 Peter Fleming306 5

There are conflicts and opposites everywhere. There are monied city types moving to the quiet of the countryside whilst the impoverished local economy drives country folk in the opposite direction in search of a better standard of life. Parents wanting a safe, relaxed rural upbringing for their children, who long for excitement. A situation to be found throughout small town American and indeed much of the developed world.

This is a close-knit community where people have few other options than to try to get along with each other. Friendships form, develop and mature, including a story of love coming later in life. Problems are shared, conflict and tragedy bring people unexpectedly together as they learn to live with each other. Teenagers mature and blossom, even those from the local ne’er-do-wells reflect and consider their futures.

An unconventional but beautifully written novel that captures modern life in a rural environment with all the hardships entailed. It is surprisingly positive and upbeat with a message that there usually is a way forward if we trust in ourselves and those around us.

All the time in the background there is the bees to show us our short comings, teaching us to find our role and how to live in harmony with each other. Existence is fragile, our story flows a liquid and we are all perishable, destined to return to the earth; nature is a wonderful thing and must be treasured.1 Kat319 14

A beautifully written novel about a community somehow isolated in Vermont, New England. We observe a life of various people, their daily lives, hopes and dreams throughout the year. And it would be perfect if not for the fact that with so many characters, so many different voices the writing seems to be chaotic. Too many characters make it hard to keep up with the story. Jumping from one character to another without clear marking makes the reader feel lost. The most interesting characters Nell and Joanie are somewhat underappreciated, I mean I would love to see this book focusing more on these two women, they´re so fascinating. Whereas the main story is supposed to be about teenagers, about whom I couldn't care less.
I think this book has the potential to become a hit, but it does need some changes and editing.
Anyway, Carolyn Kuebler is a name worth remembering, because she has a talent and a way with words that grabs your heart. Looking forward to her next book.1 Thomas Kelley415 11

I would rate this book 3 1/2 out five stars.

This is an interesting read focused on the many people of Glenville, Vermont. There is quite a cast of characters to the point in the beginning I felt I need a scorecard to keep track. But in time you are able to filter it all out. The main focus of this story is four families that will find their worlds intertwined.
There is the family who is Christian based who run a family honey business and by the way have a beautiful daughter. The new family to the area who are well to do and have a teenage son. A family who run the local inn and wedding event center who have a daughter who has friendship with the beautiful girl and the last girl from a family that everyone in the area considers trouble. All three teenage girls are friends. Most of the story is the struggles these individuals or families face with crime, first love, teenage pregnancy. But this story takes a dramatic turn which you do not see coming which in my opinion makes this story a little better than a average. Give it a read and see what you think. It is a pretty quick read.1 Laura255 9

The story:
When New York family the Calpers move to the small town of Glenville in Vermont, it is to find a simpler way of life. But when teenage son Will falls in love with Honey, the daughter of an evangelical local family, a chain of events is put in motion that will change the town and people that live there forever.

My thoughts:
“Liquid, Fragile, Perishable” is author Carolyn Kuebler’s debut novel, but she confidently weaves the narrative across multiple characters and interlocking stories as she describes the lives of the inhabitants of the small Vermont town of Glenville over the course of a year.

The story moves from character to character, relating events, thoughts and feelings in each of their voices; and this really allows you to get under the skin of each of them. Although the story circles around the characters of Will and Honey, the author doesn’t focus on them in-depth; instead, this book is really about all the members of a community, and how their lives overlap and diverge — much the bees in the hives of Honey’s family.

I read this book while in the USA, and it feels a uniquely American story of small-town life and the people that live there. The events of the book are by turns engaging, romantic, shocking and tragic, and the short bursts of story from a continuing cycle of characters kept pulling me forward to find out what happened next. I would highly recommend this book to fans of literary fiction with intimate character depictions and tales of interwoven lives, and I look forward to seeing future novels from this author.1 Maritina Mela451 91 Read

Review coming soon.could-not-finish-it ebooks-audiobooks in-this-house-we--pretty-covers1 Millie Keogh53 2

3.5. Super cool writing, loved the setting and the plot. The sparse style in comparison to the dramatic events is something I struggled with, not necessarily in a negative way. More subtle I guess than sparse. 2 s Sara1,387 84

Absolutely perfectly encapsulates small town Vermont. I say that as someone who lived in Vermont for many years. It resonates it all--the beauty, the ugliness, the people, the land, the climate, daily life etc. I thought it was genius.
I did have to get used to the writing style. You have to work for it a little at the beginning and weave it together yourself. I ended up liking the style quite a bit, but it may not be for everyone. The layout lets you almost read it as poetry, though not abstract at all. If you've lived in Vermont, yearn for Vermont, want to escape Vermont, this book is for you. Oh, and the storyline? Some of it expected, some of it very unexpected. You'll see.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It was spending a year back in Vermont.1 Michael Lindgren161 75

Deeply moving! Better have Kleenex on hand.coming-soon fiction1 Alice Modena96

I am a sucker for books with multiple points of view, and I am so glad that NetGalley and Melville House Publishing were so kind as to share a DRC of “Liquid, Fragile, Perishable” by Carolyn Kuebler. I have read a few books that do multiple points of view as uniquely and well as this book.
As usual, a couple of trigger warnings. Death of a family member, alcohol and drug abuse, depression. There are other trigger warnings, but mentioning them would spoil some key plot point. Please do check the TWs before reading.

The book follows a series of characters in a small village in New England over a year. Each chapter is written from the point of view of several of these characters, whose everyday life dreams, problems, desires, intersect in different ways. At the centre of the plot is the love story between two teenagers, and how its effect ripple way beyond their own lives. I really cannot say anything else without spoiling the story, but believe me: within the first ten pages, I was completely hooked!
There are about ten different points of view in this book, and I found them quite genuine and interesting to approach. The NY family moving to the deep countryside, youth looking for a job, people who wish to leave the small village and chase a grand future, young lovers…this book really had a series of viewpoints that I haven’t seen often in the same book.

Something that I didn’t think was needed in the book was the climate change talk. This is what makes it a 4.5 stars reading from me instead than a 5 starts one. I think the book would have been as realistic and raw and poignant without discussions of climate change and water access. I understand they were functional to a plot point, but I am sure the same point could have been made without it.

Apart from this, this was by far one of the best written and plotted books that I have read this year. It is not an happy or a simple book to approach, but if you are in the right mind space for a complex and dramatic story of interlocking experiences, I warmly recommend you pick up this book as soon as it is published (on 07 May 2024). And then write to e, so we can rave about it together!
Poppy Marlowe536 21

Synopsis (From Netgalley, the provider of the book to review)
*******************************************************

A vivid and moving portrayal of the intricate web of relations and fate in a small New England town told with interlocking storylines in a unique and mesmerizing voice of uncommon power in this debut novel.

It is May in the tiny hamlet of Glenville, Vermont, bringing with it currents of rejuvenation and rebirth. For 3 families, though, the year ahead will prove to be a roller coaster of life-changing events, promises, and tragedies.

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable unspools via a chorus of unforgettable voices: an old-school Christian beekeeping family and newly transplanted New Yorkers; a trio of teenage girls and a deeply rooted family of ne’er-do-wells; and one woman who just wants to live alone in the woods. The shifting set of relations among the citizens of this community encompasses teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, poverty—and a cavalcade of thwarted dreams, young love in bloom, and poignant missed connections.

This powerful debut is a subtle and beautiful story about the interlocking relationships among the residents of a small town out of Sherwood Anderson or Thornton Wilder—but with a very contemporary set of problems ... By turns sexy, shocking, and wistful, this coruscating debut conveys the hopes, the sadness, and the secrets of a whole great world.

Told in a vivid style of complete distinction, the novel has magic and momentum all its own, giving a look into the aching, silent heart of America.

This is a very small town filled with a lot of weird interactions and even weirder people – I had a really hard time reading this book, though. My mind would wander as I just could not keep my attention…so I skimmed and scanned the rest of the book. Maybe for book clubs but not for a casual reader as it is very incohesive as a novel about intersecting families.

MEH … 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
#shortbutsweet ngrev- EricaAuthor 2 books11

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable is a haunting, literary read. It tells the story of a year in the life of a town: the weather, the new arrivals, the rivalries, the triumphs and defeats, and the unexpected departures.

Its many points of view reflect on each other in ways that are equal parts interesting and confusing, and the (clearly intentional) decision not to provide timestamps or character labels to these short sections create a sense of dislocation that kept me at a remove throughout the my reading experience. Adding to that, the extreme interiority of the points of view omitted basic, objective facts about the setting (is this the present? why does nobody have a cell phone?) and the characters (such as their ages - several might be anywhere from 40 to 80).

Despite these frustrations, I found myself drawn into the pages. As the story began to pull together in the book's second half it became more compelling, but the plot at this point took a series of bleak turns (in total non-contrast to the novel's bleak tone and worldview up to that point). Liquid, Fragile, Perishable made, very well, its point that we are all interwoven and on the verge of collapse - but I would have d a stronger thread of hope..

3.5 stars - more interesting than enjoyable.

[I received a complimentary ARC from NetGalley and the publishers. Opinions are my own.]literary net-galley Sarah48


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