Zoey Leigh Peterson

Next Year, For Sure/Zoey Leigh Peterson In this moving and enormously entertaining debut novel, longtime romantic partners Kathryn and Chris experiment with an open relationship and reconsider everything they thought they knew about love.
After nine years together, Kathryn and Chris have the sort of relationship most would envy. They speak in the shorthand they have invented, complete one another’s sentences, and help each other through every daily and existential dilemma. When Chris tells Kathryn about his feelings for Emily, a vivacious young woman he sees often at the Laundromat, Kathryn encourages her boyfriend to pursue this other woman—certain that her bond with Chris is strong enough to weather a little side dalliance.
As Kathryn and Chris stumble into polyamory, Next Year, For Sure tracks the tumultuous, revelatory, and often very funny year that follows. When Chris’s romance with Emily grows beyond what anyone anticipated, both Chris and Kathryn are invited into Emily’s communal home, where Kathryn will discover new romantic possibilities of her own. In the confusions, passions, and upheavals of their new lives, both Kathryn and Chris will be forced to reconsider their past and what they thought they knew about love.
Offering a luminous portrait of a relationship from two perspectives, Zoey L. Paterson has written an empathic, beautiful, and tremendously honest novel about a great love pushed to the edge. Deeply poignant and hugely entertaining, Next Year, For Sure shows us what lies at the mysterious heart of relationships, and what true openness and transformation require.
 
This was a rather intriguing story with an ending I very much enjoyed.
 
The writing was challenging. It had little punctuation, with no quotation marks offsetting speech ever. While I think this can be an incredibly effective technique, it distracted from the actual premise of the book. Instead of adding meaning to the story, it made it feel as though the author were trying to be overly literary.
 
Emily as a character felt too perfect. I wanted her to screw up, to do something wrong, but she instead continually did what one would expect her to be doing as the perfect version of her character type would.
 
Kathryn felt a tad uninvited, and I was sad for her, too. She had lost friends because of a previous relationship and it took this book to see her really socialise again and even then she lost one of the few people who she had been close to prior. Reading about her felt a little bit depressing.
 
I really appreciated the honesty in Kathryn and Chris's relationship. It was refreshing to see characters talk about their crushes on other people and to understand that love isn't always linear. I was almost disappointed by the ending though I think it was well deserved.
 
If the concept really intrigues you, read this book, but despite enjoying the plot I found the actual telling to be dry.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (más)

In 2018, thirteen stories were selected for the short list of The Journey Prize in Canada. Although none of the stories this year stand out head and shoulders above the others, always there are few that impress. I like the awkwardness of the relationship in “Barcelona,” by Aviva Dale Martin, and grittiness of “Castaways,” by Rowan McCandless, and the obliqueness of “Before He Left,” by Jason Jobin. Many of the stories overtly signalled the gender, ethnicity, or orientation of their authors. Curious. It might be a sign that the journals that submit stories to the prize for blind refereeing are being tempted to game the system. Or that the selectors wanted to be gamed. That would be disappointing if it were true. It might also be telling none of the stories that stood out for me ended up in the final three from which the winner of the prize was chosen.… (más)

I loved it!

Kathryn and Chris have been together for nine years. They seem like the perfect couple; but keep reading. It seems Chris has a habit of falling in love with friends of his girlfriends. But that's in the past. He and Kathryn are a team, right? Chris gets a crush on Emily and tells Kathryn about it. As Chris can't seem to stop thinking of Emily, Kathryn encourages him to ask her out on a date. She thinks they can have that kind of open relationship. But can they?

The book explores relationships from both Kathryn's and Chris's perspectives. Is Kathryn really okay with Chris seeing Emily? Is that what Chris wants? Why would Kathryn even suggest such a thing? Is she maybe not as happy with Chris as she seems?

It's a wonderful story, well written with very deep characters. It tugged on my emotions with every twist and turn.… (más)