[Review] Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane

Summary: Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace. (Pub Date: May 28, 2019)

This was surely the wrong pick for me but there was some sense of satisfaction as I progressed.

Discussing about the effects ignoring mental diseases can bring to a family (or two), the story focuses on two families who come to be neighbors and whose children fall in love with each other, forcing them to deal with one another and causing inevitable tragedy that will define their next decades.

Can love overcome all? Not if you ignore the signs, that's the lesson I learned from Peter and Kate's love story. I'm not that into stories following the many years and tragedies of a family simply for the drama, I half cheered for some gruesome twist that would turn this into a thriller. It never happened, but I did come to love the feeling that I was actually spending time with all these characters.

The story is narrated from the POV of many characters, especially the two couples and their two children in love, Kate and Peter. We get to experience how the four met, how they came to be neighbors and how the two were born and fell in love as a result. It's really a journey and I'm sure there's a good public for it, even if I'm not a part.

Mary Beth Keane has a very easy-to-read style and the interchanging POVs never confused me, as they could in the hands of a less experienced writer. I also appreciate how she managed to insert a cliffhanger in the end of each chapter, forcing me to go to the next even when it was already the middle of the night and I had work the following morning. In other words, she knows how to grip her readers.

And, as I mentioned in my own summary, the main theme is how we tend to feign ignorance when it comes to mental diseases. The book is almost a cautionary tale of how things can go bad and how people insist in ignoring them nonetheless. The story begins around the 70's reaching nowadays and the six (or seven) main characters reincured in this mistake time and again as much back then as in the present times.

At the same time, the conclusion has its beauty and was fitting of the family drama this was. Of course, I won't spoil you. Just know the destination is worth it.

Lovers of family dramas should enjoy Peter and Kate's journey as they defy their families to stay together.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.