I found this a confusing read. Reading one section then it jumps to a flashback without warning and well, maybe it was just me, but I got totally lost. What happened to the dinner I asked myself?

I started again but then found the pace very slow and I had to give up as I just didn't get it. Sorry!

Thank you to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for this ARC.
I'm going to struggle to articulate my thoughts on this one as the whole way through I felt like I was missing something??

This novel essentially is an exploration of family trauma; the way an unstable parent and two tragic household deaths within a short space of time impact on adult lives for years to come.

I found this to be a difficult read, I hoped the pace would pick up after the first chapter as it was painfully slow. The first chapter did spark my attention. I was instantly keen to learn more about the characters at Kate's dinner party.
The chapters were suuuuuper long so definitely aren't suited to someone like me, who likes to read a chapter at a time as opposed to stopping mid-chapter, which I had to do plenty of times while reading this. This might have contributed to the way I felt about the pace and the way I struggled to get properly stuck in!

It wasn't all bad - the way the author wrote about Kate's experience with anorexia was impressive. Kate's relationships with food and, as a result, with her friends and peers while at university felt raw and real.
The character of the family matriarch, Bernadette, was another redeeming feature of the story. Bernadette's mood swings, over-protectiveness of her children (especially the twin girls), her all-knowing and overbearing personality and her strict parenting choices were fascinating.

I just wasn't invested in the story or the majority of the characters. Honestly, I'm a really stubborn reader and rarely DNF as I like to give books the chance to redeem themselves - this one just didn't do it for me.

Readers who enjoy slow burners and incredible (but often difficult) use of language will enjoy this, hopefully getting more out of it than I did!

The Dinner Party is a powerful family drama set in contemporary Ireland.
Kate, a 32 years old single woman and her two older brothers, Peter & Raymond, gravitate around their widowed mother Bernardette, an overbearing & manipulative matriarch with the eternal claim to victimhood tattooed on her forefront & a daily axe to grind with anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path. Finally, their father and sister (Kate's twin sister) both accidentally killed in separate incidents towards the beginning of the millennium, are also the strongly palpable abscences in this searing portrait of a family quintet gone emotionally bonkers.

Sarah Gilmartin's novel is a haunting & unforgettable exploration of all the negative emotional bonds that ensnare a family over the years within a miasma of grudges, hates, resentment, rancors, grievances and feelings left unexpressed, and how the slow process towards healing & forgiveness can painstakingly but surely be put back on track and eventually win the day.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Puskin Press for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel prior to its release date

Kate and Elaine are twins, who live on a farm with their parents and two older brothers, Ray and Peter.

The story starts with a dinner party that three of the siblings, plus an additional spouse have to remember a loss in the family.

The story goes back through the years and gives the reader insight as to why each family member has their own issues.

This book was a slow starter, but did pick up pace. The chapters when all four siblings were together were enjoyable, but less so as they grew older. Their mother was a nightmare and they were far too forgiving towards her!

This book sums up the old adage that you can’t choose your family!

Thank you NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley, Pushkin Press and Sarah Gilmartin for this e-ARC.

This was a slow burner but it was fascinating to see the dynamics of this peculiar family unravel through flashbacks and Gilmartin’s beautiful writing.

Thank you Netgalley for this e-ARC.

I don't know what to say. This book was unable to hold my interest from page 1 to page 60. So I decided to DNF it. It is not my cup of tea and pace was so slow.

This is sort of like a modern version of Mrs. Dalloway. I highly enjoyed the unique perspective of this original story. This book is going to be a winner with a lot of readers.

A heartwarming Irish family tale. Don't we all have things simmering beneath the surface, just waiting for an opportunity to be aired. Reminiscent of Marian Keyes.

Ach, where to start with a book whose character left me completely disinterested? A dinner party given at the 16th anniversary of a twin’s death, pages about a pottery clock that was knocked off a mantelpiece, another page on a dog being fed, more pages on family dinners, a histrionic mother, more pages on playing cards, petty sibling squabbles, campus life, lengthy gymkhana descriptions and yet more sheer endless family dinners. All together amounting to...meh.

Set in Ireland between the 1990's and the current day - Dinner Party is a tale of family dynamics, love, loss, and grief.
Kate is a twin to Elaine and a sister to two brothers - Ray and Peter. Kate's mum is unbalanced, the whole family including her husband walks on eggshells in her company and she rules the home with an iron fist. The hold she has over her family continues throughout the sibling's childhood right into adulthood, drastically affecting their relationships with each other and their partners.

There are two tragedies within Dinner Party and both send Kate off the rails, however, she deals with the events in the best way she can.
Dinner Party is well written and the characters are raw and believable. I particularly loved the little twists that appeared throughout the book.

Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin is a novel about siblings, grief and bereavement, mental health issues and growing up.

This novel is exceptional.

The main character, Kate, meets with her two brothers (and occasionally her mother) every year on Halloween to mourn the death of her twin sister, Elaine.

We start the novel at one such dinner party, where Kate, unwell but persevering under the razor-like pressure to make everything right, cooks for her two brothers and one of their partners, with their mother, thankfully, not there.

It then snakes into a heartfelt family tale- all of the things that are said and are not said over years and how they build into something much more terrifying, as Kate, her brothers and their mother all navigate the swampy mess of being in a family.

Kate's struggles with anorexia are then revealed, adding extra context to the tightly wound perfectionism of the opening scene. These are dealt with sensitively and in depth. Not easy reading at times, but masterfully handled.

The family must come to terms with not only their own demons, but those of their family members, as they try to fill the chasm left by two deaths.

The language of this novel is incredibly precise- at times, the words and phrases feel so suffocating that you crave escape, at times they are loose and flowing and open, but the language is always sublime. It has been a long time since I last read a novel where almost every page had a turn of phrase that I wanted to note down and squirrel away for another time, but this novel had me stopping and slowing down to savour every morsel.

Sarah Gilmartin's ability to find images that are both accurate and imaginative, both gentle and deeply physical, is just breathtaking.

These are even better in context, but lines like these completely floored me: "she felt the evening sliding inside her" and "Loss had split Kate open. It had halved her and then halved her again."

The language of this story is so rich and spare at the same time, and it is deeply visceral without ever having to be vulgar. I do not know how she did it, but I am in awe.

Although I don't like comparing authors too much, I think it is fitting that Anne Enright provided the review on the front page of this book, because there is something about the sheer power and force of voice in this novel that reminds me a lot of Enright.

I requested this novel from Net Galley on a bit of a whim, and came away stunned by its beauty.

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I received an advance copy of this novel from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.