Enjoyed the opening of this and thought it had real promise but it became v muddled the longer it went on. I’m a fan of experimental women’s fiction but this is just a bit of a jumble & doesn’t hang together. I threw in the towel at the mid-way point.

Although the story line premise was excellent I found Shelf life extremely hard to read.
This is due in part to the font./typesetting used for the text message sections. I found these extremely hard to read due to the text, colour and the line breaks not really working (at least on the ARC kindle edition although I acknowledge things may look very different in the final version). The novel was also very disjointed and it was sometimes hard to keep a track of who was speaking/thinking/dreaming, which meant some sections needed a re-read to clear up later confusion.

I liked the character of Ruth and her story, as it was revealed through her shopping list, was a sad one. It was easy to relate to her and to her confusion and misery at the way she had been treated by Neil.
Her emotional well being (or lack thereof) was also colouring what could potentially be a good friendship with Alanna and that was also sad, that she distanced herself from support by assuming they were disingenuous..
There were aspects of the plot that were only partially described or alluded to that left me feeling confused and wanting more background or explanation.
Overall a book with great promise but too hard to read for me to enjoy its full potential

The idea behind this story was brilliant but I'm afraid that the execution of it bored me to the point that I skimmed through the pages to the end. I read to the end partly to see how things would pan out and also because I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I'm just sorry that I cannot give a better one.

The story is based around a couple who have split up and the girlfriend is left with a shopping list. There is a reason for each ingredient and this makes up the basis of the story.

The two-star rating is for the original list idea.

Im not to sure what to say about this book? It's funny It's sad, I was drawn into Ruths life and felt id been on the journey with her. After a break up the only thing she has left is the joint shopping list and through the list of ingredients the story is told as she learns who she really is.

Thanks to NetGalley for an early copy of this for a review.
Shelf Life was one of those books I'd been looking forward to reading since I heard about it. The promise to turn what is a seemingly mundane part of a relationship into something with depth really appealed to me. Livia Franchini certainly delivered on that promise by inviting the reader to travel through Ruth’s relationship with a shopping list as their guide.
Ruth was a strong, well developed character. There was a sadness emanating from her story, undoubtedly built from years of emotional hurt and instability, and it was heartbreaking to see how she and other characters treated her at various points in her life. I only wish she’d got a better ending - she didn’t need to have necessarily fallen in love again (because that wouldn’t be as realistic as I think this book was trying to be), but she should have found happiness in the friendship that was just waiting to happen with Alanna. She also could have done with having more closure in her relationship with Neil because, although she told the reader about it, I’m not sure she ever came to a conclusion.
As I’ve said, I would have liked to have seen more interaction between Ruth and Alanna because I think there was something there the reader didn’t get to see. Livia Franchini did make me successfully hate Neil, though.
Livia Franchini’s writing suited this book. It was harsh and blunt, but also sometimes funny. I think it worked.
I just wished there could have been more of an ending. Without it, I left the book feeling confused and a bit meh. I wanted a bit more and was sad to turn the page and have nothing left to read. I think it could suit a lot of people, but I just wasn’t 100% on board with it.

I honestly didn’t know what to make of this novel. It is imaginatively written under the headings from a shopping list, written prior to Ruth and her partner Neil going their separate ways. We follow Ruth through this breakup as she navigates her life beyond, working as a nurse in a care home alongside colleagues/friend Alanna and the two ‘Lolitas’. I found these passages relatively easy to read and at times humorous but ultimately Shelf Life is a depressing read. Ruth cuts a strange and sad figure which the author portrays well, for instance the sex scene with the barman. Overall though I found the narrative confusing and at times completely failed to understand what the author is trying to convey. Perhaps the format adds to the disjointed feel of the novel, switching between life in the care home, bizarre dreams and emails between Neil and Ruth when they are beginning their relationship and then Neil and some unknown woman after the break up. I can’t pretend to understand most of this novel, reading it felt like entering a parallel universe where everyone else spoke a different language. I’m not entirely sure why I persevered as no one wants to feel like they are stupid by not understanding the content!! Reading is meant to be an enjoyable experience and whilst I appreciate the hard work that has gone into creating this work, sadly it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Unfortunately I don’t think this novel will appeal to a mainstream audience but thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read ahead of publication.

I was waiting for this book to pick up the pace but when I was still begrudgingly turning the pages at the half way point it seemed like it was never coming. Maybe the last half is much better but I’ll never know.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I wish I could say that I loved this book but I found it really hard going.
Seldom do I admit defeat with anything, but by 45% I gave in and quit.
Always a shame when this happens ( and very rarely), but I believe an honest review should always be given.

I was really gripped by the opening of this book when Ruth describes how she feels when her relationship breaks down but the rest didn't live up to this.
The sections which were emails from Neil were dreary and didn't add to the story and the ending was just poor.
Not sure what the author was trying to achieve here not felt she was trying g and failing to be clever.

This book is heart breaking my human.

I love books about people and their relationships with people around them and this is a masterclass.

Shelf life by Livia Franchini
Oh dear!!! Disturbing, depressing, confusing! It’s one I kept reading to get to the bottom of what was going on ..... I’m sadly none the wiser I would have loved the shopping list to be better linked and some random dreams deconstructed somewhat to build and expound on a storyline. The foul language seemed unnecessarily overplayed too (although I’m assuming the anger and mental health issues are the rationale for the prolific use.)
To be fair to the author, the fact that I’m still disturbed about it a couple of days later is likely a measure of success to her and may recommend it to some. However, this one just isn’t for me I’m afraid

Ruth is thirty years old and works as a nurse in a care home and her fiancé has just broken up with her leaving her with just their shopping list for the upcoming week.
Through the list we find out who Ruth is, who has helped shape her life and what happens to her now she is alone.

I was baffled by this book, which is a shame as there were parts of it that really engaged me. I'm giving it 3 stars for being creative and original as well as well-written, but I can't say I know what happened in the end at all - the meaning of the final shopping list as distinct from the original shopping list just didn't make sense to me.

Spoilers - don't read on unless you have read this.

Is she cured? Was it him who made her have an eating disorder and losing him helped? I didn't think so because of that whole thing with her mum and the chicken and coleslaw deal, which was surreal and I wasn't even sure it had happened - maybe I wasn't concentrating enough - but it suggested her eating disorder pre-dated her fiance. I would love someone to explain that part to me - dabbling their fingers in mayonnaise coleslaw to extract bits of vegetable to put with hand-shredded chicken, dried with napkins and then immediately thrown away? Why on earth...? I don't think I can move on with my life until I find out!

I also wasn't sure about the old man who died - did she contribute to his death? Was she 'caught' and investigated? Punished?

I can't say I was a fan of the email/Whatsapp sections because of all the font issues used to make the usernames look convincing (and because I use quite large font on my Kindle) I ended up with pages and pages where there were only 2 or 3 lines of actual text to follow, which made me impatient and click through faster until I was no longer really focused on what was being said. Also there's a limit to how much vacuous, mispelled textspeak I can endure when the point being made could have been conveyed much faster in other modes, or by using that one more sparingly.

The break-up plot is such a staple of chick-lit/rom-coms that it's refreshing to see it treated with a level of seriousness here. That said, this book is somewhat different from the blurb: the shopping list, for example, is no more than chapter titles, and the structure is that familiar fragmented one switching from character to character with emails and texts. Sometimes this works well: Neil's emails, for example, tell us something important about him and his relationship with Ruth that never needs to be spelled out. In other places the story becomes artificially stretched as we flip back ten years and spend lots of time on events that ultimately lack significance.

I've seen comparisons with Eleanor Oliphant but should say that this is less intimate and doesn't have the humour or transparent depth of pain of that book. It seems influenced, to me, also by Elena Ferrante's 'Days of Abandonment' though it lacks the focus and rawness of that text.

What I like is that Franchini doesn't spell out everything and pin it down: both Ruth and Neil are troubled personalities though in differing ways. And that excruciating scene where Ruth takes chicken and coleslaw to have dinner with her mother is rendered with precision and control. I think I'd have liked to have seen more of this detail rather than the story spreading itself so thinly. An interesting debut, overall, but it could do with some finessing: 3.5 stars.

The idea behind this book is a good one, but I struggled to read to the end, and didn't really care about any of the characters. I really wouldn't recommend it.

An original idea (although not the first to use a shopping list as a story line), but the first to use it as a break up and a divisive one at that. It wasn't about love, but about control. Having said that, I did find it quite hard to get into to, and although I felt sympathy for the main character, it was a little hard going.

A lovely story. Well written and very easy to read. I loved it and would definitely read more form this author xx

Neil breaks with Ruth after 10 years in a relationship and an engagement. Stunned, Ruth reads a shopping list. She then takes a sleeping pill and dreams about a baby daughter never to be born.

I wasn't enjoying the book, and couldn't engage with it, After paging through several rather rambling emails from Neil to a female colleague I gave up.

If the premise of this book appeals, I would recommend downloading a Kindle sample to quickly discover whether this book is for you.

This will be a divisive book in women's experimental fiction, I think.
If you enjoy the more liberal and less plot snapshots of a life, then I think you will enjoy this.
Ruth is going through a relationship break up. It is told through snapshots of each item on the last joint shopping list they made together, but also includes pov from the 'friends' in her life and her ex partner.
It's indescribably sad, and melancholic. I felt Ruth was a deeply depressed, anorexic woman that had spent ten years with an abusive partner. I expect others will see differently. I felt Neil was a textbook narcissist, and I shuddered reading his pages - I actually recoiled from them. Ruth has so much trauma that she tries to just carry on with, and it feels like her situation devolves into chaos as the book progresses, to a vague conclusion that will leave readers guessing as to what actually happens - something that personally I don't like, but felt worked in this context.
Ruth, to me, was a victim - there was definitely strange things going on with the ritual defleshing and portioning of the dinner with her mother, her grooming and entrapment by Neil, her colleagues and friends using her terribly, and it creates a cumulative climax.
This was a heartbreaking book for me - she just seemed so deeply, deeply sad, and I saw myself at far too many points within it.
Not an instant classic, but I think it'll have its fans - those that enjoy savouring the totality of an emotion.

A story of a breakup of a relationship, as told by chapters headed by their shopping list. An ingenious idea, that for me, unfortunately didn't work.