I was really excited about this book. It had a brilliant premise: a thirty-year-old woman, reeling from the sudden end of her decade-long relationship, finds a recent shopping list, with each item conjuring disparate memories of her ex-fiance and her youth. An innovative and imaginative exploration of identity, memory and power from a young and impassioned female voice.

And yet the story itself really didn't live up to my expectations. I personally found it a little dull, and couldn't help but feel that the characters were lacking. Considering the novel centred around such an affecting scenario, and crafted a protagonist with issues and idiosyncrasies which should have been genuinely heartbreaking, the text was ultimately, bizarrely unmoving. I felt no connection, and very little engagement or immersion. I pushed myself to finish it, but everything just seemed to sort of... fizzle out.

I appreciate the creativity, courage and hard work which has clearly gone in to this work, but it simply was not for me.

The story of the break up of a relationship and how the Ruth (the person left behind) deals with it using a shopping list she finds after her Fiance leaves. Other than using the list as the chapter titles the link isn't obvious as you read through the book.
Ruth is a complex person to understand and not very likeable, as a reader it is hard to be sympathetic to her situation.
The end is confusing, you are left unsure as to what has actually happened - if anything.

This is quite a strange book. The story is a good one but then it ends very funny and left me a little bit lost.

I really struggled with this, and feel like I’m missing a huge chunk of the concept or narrative that might have helped me enjoy it more. I have no idea what happened at the end, or what the relationship to the shopping list items was, or even what happened between Ruth and Alanna. Massively confused!!

Shelf Life takes a boring concept- a shopping list- and turns it into the story of a failed relationship, two troubled lives, and a host of harking back through generations. On the whole I liked the back and forth but felt it would have been much better without the dream sequences- the text doesn't need them and the reader can infer points about low self esteem, fear and loneliness without their help. On top of that, the text flows better without the dream sequences and you get a better insight into all the different characters and moments. I felt the ending was quite abrupt and unresolved, but that suits this type of story. Not the most obvious winner and won't appeal to everyone, but the characters are mostly loathsome and it made for very interesting reading for that reason alone.

When you start a book while keeping your expectations in check because the synopsis was very promising and a bit unique but then the book disappoints you in various ways, what are you supposed to do?

That’s the question that kept me from writing the review for this one for a few days.

After a decade of being together, Ruth is left alone when her partner Neil leaves her. All she has after that are the memories of Neil, her work as a nurse in an old people’s home and lists of grocery shopping. We are given glimpses into her life throughout the book by means of items in the grocery list and I have to admit that the format really intrigued me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea that every single item from their list is cleverly incorporated into the chapters made this book more enjoyable than it really is.

I do wish that the pacing was a bit better and that all the characters we see were a bit more three-dimensional, including Ruth. Neil seemed a bit off putting and a bit creepy at times. I wish we got more of Alanna as she seemed to genuinely care about Ruth. I wish she was more fleshed out, Ruth and Alanna were friends for a long time and if only I was shown that part of their relationship. They had history, didn’t they? It should have been made obvious in the way really good and long friendships can be shown. Oh, well.

Part of the reason my rating went down could be because of the format of the book not always working on my Kindle. I think this book clearly had great potential but somewhere the writing and characters felt a bit flat to me. There are times when I truly felt for Ruth, there was a lot that the author could have unpacked with her. Her childhood, her relationship with her mother, her friendship with Alanna, her eating issues! So many things that feel like they weren’t explored enough.

However the ending did feel a bit better, I like thinking that Ruth did have an optimistic outlook ahead of her. In the end, I think what this book set out to achieve was Ruth finding parts of herself that were on the mend, Ruth understanding that despite her current circumstances, she did have the gumption to forge her life ahead. It it a hopeful ending but I just wish I could have connected more to the people and the plot a bit more.

It is certainly worth a read despite my less than effusing review because the author does show promise and the book does pose a few questions that might remain with you even after you are done with it.

Shelf Life documents the life of Ruth Beadle, both before her break up with long-term partner Neil, and in the months following. We hear from Ruth herself, we skip backwards to conversations between girls she attended school with, and we read excerpts from her friend Alanna's diary. Ruth is an interesting character and the book was original, but I felt somehow that the reader needed to know more. Perhaps that is a strength of the writing, in that it is left up to us to decide why Ruth makes the decision she does. There are subjects in this book that may be triggering for some readers and it isn't an easy read in that respect. Shelf Life is one of those books that leaves you thinking after you've turned the last page, and for this reason I did like it. Not a book to read if you're feeling depressed perhaps, but thought-provoking and a real insight into the nature of grief and what it is to be a woman struggling to fit in to society.

I'm afraid I just didn't get this book! The story itself seemed to have no resemblance to the blurb I had read ahead of requesting a copy. I did read on to the end and there were sections and parts of the story that I did enjoy, but it didn't live up my expectations at all.

Thank you to Netgalley for a review copy - I wish I could give it a better review.

With thanks to Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This is a book that sadly left me cold. I could see what the author was trying to do, but much of her technique seemed to be there for its own sake, rather than driving the telling of her story.

Ruth has been in a relationship with Neil for 10 years and they are engaged, when he announces one evening that he is leaving her to move to a commune. In her shell-shock she focuses on the week’s shopping list, the items on which form the subsequent chapter names, for no good reason at all that I could see.

The narrative alternates between Ruth’s first person almost stream of consciousness as she deals with the first waves of shock and grief, and emails and text messages from Neil to a succession of women he attempts to strike up relationships with while still with Ruth, and a section where we get his voice trying to justify his behaviour. Neil is a manipulative man-child with no sense of morals or responsibility, able to justify himself to himself by spouting new-age pop psychology and making himself out to be a soul in search of enlightenment. 

My main problem with engaging with this novel is that Ruth remains largely a cipher throughout. She reports the throes of the early days when she retreats into herself, which is understandable. But there are hints of a long history of dysfunctional passivity more generally. She seems to live on dissolved sugar, and from Neil’s description of her shopping habits in her student days, this is not a reaction to the break-up but a more deep-seated eating disorder which is never addressed in the novel. 

At work she seems responsible and reliable, but unless she is leaving out a great deal in her narrative, she seems to have very little interaction with her co-workers or the residents in the nursing home where she works. She seems to have no real friends, although her former school mate Alanna who now works with her, along with another pair of flighty young carers, hatch up a plan to ask her to be Alanna’s maid of honour in Alanna’s upcoming wedding, in order to draw her out. And there is a disturbing incident where she may be the cause of a resident’s death...

Altogether, I found this novel quite unsatisfying. There is some hope that Ruth will recover from Neil’s departure, but not that she will become less passive, more rounded, more of a presence in the world. It is a novel of omissions, and while this is a valid narrative technique which, handled well, allows the reader to engage and fill in the gaps, there’s just too much here that remains empty, like a jigsaw puzzle with more missing pieces than there are remaining ones. My feeling on reaching the end was, ‘meh, so what?’

Most of the time when reading a book, I would normally have a sense of what it is and where it’s going a hundred or so pages in, definitely by the halfway point; With Shelf-Life I wasn’t ever really sure.

Livia Franchini is definitely attempting something different with a familiar story (or story type). I love the idea of telling the story of a relationship/breakup through a shopping list, it did however feel like an accidental discovery that this could be done once the book was finished, rather than an intentional method of storytelling.

I found myself craving a lot more depth than Franchini gives us - I wanted to get to know the characters and their actions better, so much of the story is hinted at but never fully explored.

I just couldn't get 100% on board with this one.

Even though it was cleverly written it just felt lacking throughout and I found it really hard to get through.

The actual layout and font of each section fuddled my brain, nothing seemed to flow properly but hopefully all that will be ironed out before print.

The actual premise of the book really intrigued me but once I started reading I found it quite boring, my mind ended up wandering and thinking if my own shopping list! It was just confusing, disjointed and there were parts, like Neil's emails, that dudmt actually add anything to the book what do ever.

The idea if the book was brilliant but on paper it just didnt work.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

I was intrigued by the format of this story. After her husband of ten years leaves her, the only thing Ruth has left to connect them is a shopping list. Each item on the shopping list is a chapter and describes different times in Ruth’s life and the few people she has in it.
Initially I felt sorry for Ruth, I can empathise with her feeling of heartbreak and struggling to carry on each day.

As the story revealed more about her past I found it was quite interesting but at some points I did find it a little confusing as it jumps between different characters and time frames. About 3/4 of the way through I became quite bored of the story and it felt like a real chore to read. I was no longer interested in the characters and found most of them to be boring and unlikeable. More detail could have been given to some areas of the story but it felt a bit like it was glossed over then not mentioned again.

I did manage to finish the book but the ending felt a bit rushed and unsatisfying.

I’m sure some people will really love this book, but despite a promising start it unfortunately wasn’t for me.

I’m confused as to what I’ve just read. Parts of this book were interesting and made sense. But unfortunately I found the rest of it disjointed and very confusing. I didn’t find the characters likeable which didn’t help. Other readers might “get it” and find it more enjoyable and I think I may read this again in the future to see if I can make more sense of it but for now I can only give two stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

This book was a completely different concept to anything I've read before. I struggled to get into it, and then when I did, couldn't put it down but I can't help but be disappointed by the ending. I know Ruth was ok but the novel left me wanting more.....

After ten years together, Ruth finds herself suddenly alone. Neil has left and all that her life consists of now is her work as a nurse in an old people’s home and shopping groceries at the small Tesco close to her flat. How did she get here? First, the escape of her ill-willed mother, then her friend Alanna whom she met in nursery school and with whom she still works together, the different patients and their respective needs, and Neil whom she despite all the time together seems to have hardly known.

Shelf Life – a. the period during which a good remains effective and free from deterioration. B. the period for which an idea or piece of information is considered an advantage over the competitor.

Still after having finished reading the novel, I wonder about the link between the title and the plot. Yes, the groceries Ruth buys somehow play a prominent role since they provide the titles for the different chapters. But beyond this? So what else could the title refer to? The time the main character is considered young – might be, but Ruth is beyond this discussion and her age is of no importance. Even as a young girl she wasn’t actually judged pretty or attractive. An innovative idea or piece of information is also something I didn’t find.

Thus, just as the titles leaves me a bit perplex, the whole story only slightly touched me. There is some red thread, basically between Alanna and Ruth, which is a bit strange since her relationship and breakup with Neil somehow nevertheless make up the centre of the plot around which everything revolves.

I liked Livia Fanchini’s style of writing and I am sure she can tell an interesting story, but somehow “Shelf Life” confused me much more than it made sense. Her characters are definitely interesting in their very peculiar manners, but somehow it all seemed not fully developed to me.

I couldn’t get very far with this book I’m afraid. It started off well, with an argument between Neil and Ruth, with him walking out on her to go and live in a commune. But then it just all went weird. With Ruth having strange dreams and sending odd emails. The shopping list was kind of mentioned but had no relevance to the content. So sorry but this wasn’t the book for me

I wasn’t too sure about this book to start and having finished it I’m still conflicted. Parts of it are beautifully written and would almost make short stories in their own right The description of the breakup of Ruth and Neil’s relationship and her statement that she has never been a person alone I found moving but I’m afraid for me it went downhill from there and the story at times seemed to inhabit a different universe to me . The characters of Alana and the “Lolita's” at the care home provide some light relief in the story , Neil as a character I found to be self centred and egotistic also creepy in the chapters where he is corresponding ( online we assume) with much younger women .
I see in the authors notes that she is doing a PhD in women’s experimental writing ,for me the novel has lost something somewhere but I cannot put my finger on it .

I found this a tricky one to review. I certainly enjoyed a lot of the book, but was left feeling a bit adrift at the end, maybe just wanting a little more in the last section. It would be a good book for book groups as I certainly wanted to talk to someone once I'd got to the end to ask their opinion of the outcome.

The story is based around Ruth, who is taking her first steps following the breakup of a ten-year relationship with Neil. The chapters are structured around the couple's last shopping list and I loved the way each item is cleverly written into that particular chapter. After many chapters I found myself looking back to read the chapter name to see where the item had appeared.

The narrative jumps a lot and gradually Ruth's story is pieced together. Some of the narrative is told from Neil's perspective and scarily we see that he has groomed Ruth, used her and discarded her. The little we hear of him certainly defines him as a very creepy character. We also meet Alanna, one of Ruth's work colleagues. The girls also share past history having been at the same school and nursing college. I am sorry we did not see more of Alanna. Although she is portrayed as being rather ditsy I think there would or could have been a lot more to her character. She is clearly concerned about Ruth's wellbeing and she appears to have invited her to be maid of honour at her wedding out of concern.

I found some sections of the book harder to read. I found myself skimming some of the pages where the girls text each other as on my Kindle I ended up with loads of empty lines and it wasn't so easy to work out who was saying what. Also, I am not sure that all the bizarre dreams added a lot.

I think I ended up feeling sorry for Ruth. Her eating issues clearly go back to a time when she was much younger and there is a heart-breaking scene where she goes to visit her mother but they cannot connect. I am not surprised she 'snapped' and felt a certain amount of sympathy for her. With a hint of a spoiler - if she got her life back on track, as she seems to have done, well good for her.

The book is cleverly written and you have to keep alert to put the pieces together. But I'd say it's worth a read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

I have literally no idea what I have just read! I thought the idea of telling the story of a break up from the items that were left on the last joint shopping list was a really good idea and so I was excited to read this but it was just seriously confused and didn't really pull the items from the list into the story at all!

A very different style of book depicting the journey of a relationship. Started off well but fell down and picked itself up as it went along. I admired the writing but felt there was not enough there to grip me