This is the story of two people over the course of one day who meet at a protest march. The backstory of each sets the scene with 10 year old Pen, who is unable to confess her feelings to her friend, Alice, and Ruth who is suffering from a failed desire to conceive, despite IVF, and fears her marriage is at risk. The strain felt by each is expertly captured through forensic characterisation which rather beautifully conveys each characters' turmoil. The choice to pitch the plot over the course of only one day works well, with the writer seemingly going for depth rather than breadth, and that increases the intensity of feeling since both of the main characters are, effectively, suffering. There is some powerful stuff going on here, and Pine definitely has the knack of hypnotising the reader, especially, for me, with the story of Ruth and Aidan's plight, which I thought was particularly sensitively done. The character of Pen is an interesting one, and whilst I enjoyed the character development there, I felt it strayed, just a little into cliche, compared to the 'Ruth' story. Nevertheless, an excellent read. Recommended.

My grateful thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Ruth and her husband Aidan are at a crossroads in their relationship and Ruth now fears Aidan will leave her. Once they were happy together and ready to make a family. But everything has failed and Ruth needs to stop now; she has given up and cannot go through with another round of IVF. It seems futile, totally heartbreaking and she feels empty. She has two choices: leave or stay and compromise. She has some thinking to do.
Pen is a sixteen year old girl. She is somewhere within the Autistic spectrum, and does not always have the words to explain herself. Today she has decided she must find the words, the courage and a way to let her best friend Alice know how she feels about her and she is hoping Alice will feel the same as she does. Her mother Claire is a steady and great support for her, but this time Pen must figure it out on her own. She feels at a loss and uncertain of what her future holds.
It is 7th October 2019. Dublin is buzzing. A climate change protest is being organised within the park. Pen is panicking. She cannot get a breath in at all. She has arranged a treat for Alice in the evening after the crowds have dispersed, but her confidence has taken a hit. Alice doesn’t want to go with her. She has even walked away. Ruth is walking past and straight away she realises that Pen needs her help. She is a counsellor and knows just how to calm her. They have never met before, but just this once they are together, the troubled wife and the distressed teenager. They may never meet again but Ruth has helped her. In many ways they have the same needs; time to think, peace and resolution. So the story continues and lessons have been learned.
I read and reviewed Emilie Pine’s debut nonfiction sensation ‘Notes to Self’. ‘Ruth & Pen’ is her fiction debut and in many ways the two books deal with similar female issues, love, grief uncertainty, sexual awakening and loneliness. I was well into both Ruth’s and Pen’s stories and felt full of empathy for them both. Their lives were in a precarious and dizzying horrible stage and I could appreciate they both felt fragile, vulnerable and uncertain. My favourite character in the novel was Pen’s mother Claire. She was a brilliant role model for her daughter and full of understanding and compassion. She was calm and loving. The storytelling was good and the research undertaken meticulous and well informed, definitely a huge help and adding authenticity to her storyboard. Despite all of these positive points I did not quite believe in the entire story. Rather than enhancing the story, when the two stories merged together and so insignificantly and so briefly I thought this relationship could have been mutually beneficial in supporting both stories. I must admit I felt let down.
I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Penguin through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for my copy sent in return for an honest and unbiased review.

The story is about Ruth, a counsellor and Pen, a teenager, who are living in Dublin and are unconnected but their paths cross briefly during a climate change protest in the city centre. Ruth is worried her marriage is falling apart, after another unsuccessful round of IVF. Pen is a neurodivergent 16 year-old, who is in love with her best friend Alice and doesn’t know how to tell her.
I requested a copy of this book as I thought it would make a change from the genre that I usually read, being a bit different and an interesting concept. Although well written, it wasn’t really for me as there wasn’t a strong plot, if you are more interested in the lives and thoughts of the characters than plot, this would be an great read.

As a reader and a writer I loved this novel, particularly neurodivergent Pen. Ruth's storyline was more predictable yet well told, and the structure (a single day in Dublin) was tight but not restrictive. However in my role as bookseller in a small rural bookstore the end scene would be too much for our conservative-with-a-small-c clients.

4-5 rounded up.

Counsellor Ruth fears her marriage to Aidan is over after the strain of several failed rounds of IVF and she needs to make a choice. Pen is desperate to find the words to tell her best friend Alice exactly how she feels but for Pen spoken words do not come easy. This is a story of two people, one day and how their lives briefly connect at a climate change protest in Dublin. Both need to find the inner calm to just be.

This is a beautifully written, intense and very sensitive character study with, for me, the standout character being 16 year old Pen. I just love the words inside her head where she is impressively articulate and her outstanding memory which does stun a few characters she meets on this day. Her portrayal is fantastic, you feel as if the author really gets to the core of her and I love her for who she is. A big shout out for her mother Claire whose loving presence and support is heartwarming. The impact of the IVF on both Ruth and Aidan is powerfully conveyed. It’s raw, emotional and extremely moving and their grief feels palpable. You applaud struggling Ruth for just putting one foot in front of the other.

The author throughout takes us on an emotional journey from pain to love and clearly shows that we can never know what people are feeling on the inside. I really like the ending which feels just right.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin General, Hamish Hamilton for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

Ruth and Pen By Emilie Pine.

Dublin - 7th October 2019, two women, Ruth and Pen .They are strangers but their paths cross briefly on the day, both are at very different stages in their life but both are questioning their lives, their place in the world and the people they share their world with. Ruth has just been through her 4th unsuccessful attempt at IVF, her marriage to Adam is at breaking point. She needs to decide if she should stay or go. Pen is 16 and neurodiverse, she has taken the day off school to attend a climate change protest with her friend Alice, today is the day she will tell Alice how she feels about her.

I loved every word of Notes To Self. I inhaled it in one go, reading till the middle of the night. I was excited when I heard Emilie Pine was writing her first novel and gave a little yelp of excitement when notification of this advance reader copy landed in my inbox. Once again, Emilie Pine's writing demanded my full attention , impossible to put down once you start.

This book is an incredible character study. Through Pine's assured sentences, we get to know Ruth and Pen and can feel the weight they are carrying. The love and grief and indecision and tentative hope is captured so perfectly. I could feel what they are feeling when reading, it takes immense skill to write two characters with such depth and accuracy. Pen's mother Claire is very much a secondary character in the book, her presence is in the background yet she is one of the best characters I have read in a long time. Despite her scant appearance in the pages her character brings such reassurance ,wisdom , and love.
Pine also quietly portrays Dublin in all its current condition of faded glory, the after effects of poor planning, its destruction and potential and captures that nostalgia that temporarily overwhelms you at times suddenly when you walk through a city you have spent your life walking though, exquisitely.

This book had me from its beginning but it's the final quarter that I found truly wonderful. The book sweeps to its crescendo, with tension, emotion and had me holding my breath at parts leaving me feeling both bereft and optimistic when I finished reading. I hope Ruth and Pen are ok out there. I will genuinely think about them when I am walking through town.

Emilie Pine has leapfrogged up to the top of my list of favourite Irish writers.

4.5 stars with a 5 star ending.

before i get into this review i want to say my experience with this book has come from a place of absolute relatability to the topics of this book and i felt everything on such a deeply personal level (this is reflected in the review).

i wish i could put into words the feeling this book gave me but i don’t think it’s possible. it felt like so many parts of my soul and my brain that i didn’t realise existed had been described perfectly. i was choked up for a majority of this book?? like a permanent lump in my throat the more the characters were explored.

the themes tackled in this book were tough, but i think will be so relatable to so many people. and also done in a way that felt so realistic, meaning it was so easy to see these characters in yourself / people around you. so much of pen i saw in myself. unbelievable amounts really, it frightened me a bit. and where i couldn’t see myself, the women in my life were there at every turn. what was done so well was that the relationships between the characters felt so incredibly real.

i loved every second of reading this and had to stop at one moment to catch my breath because i couldn’t believe how SEEN i felt. like my life and my experience were being reflected back at me. it was wonderful. for me i had to dock a star because at times it felt a little higgledy-piggledy, kind of on the verge of listing too much and losing the overall voice? but other than that i love it so so much and will be buying a copy as soon as i can.

a massive thank you to netgalley and penguin UK for the chance to read the advance copy of this !!

Ruth & Pen is a beautifully quiet book about the struggles we're all facing. Told over the course of a day, it is a testament to Emilie Pine's intense writing that we are able to gain so much knowledge of the two women, and feel so deeply for them.

Whilst Ruth & Pen are the main points of view, we also get glimpses into the worlds of Ruth's husband, Aiden, and also Pen's best friend, Alice. These insights really build the women into rounded characters. I particularly felt for the neurodivergent Pen, who is struggling to place her emotions in an anxiety fuelled world. Pine portrays Pen in such a way that I could completely empathise with her, and understand why everything overwhelmed her at times. The novel explores how alien we can feel in connection to our bodies at times, and how our inability to express this can be read in certain ways by others.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Set in Ireland, this is a book about two completely different woman who cross paths briefly a couple of times in the course of one day, but otherwise they're entirely separate. Ruth, the older of the two, is a counsellor/therapist wondering if her marriage to Aidan is going to survive and grieving over failed courses of IVF and a miscarriage. Pen is exploring her sexuality and is on a climate change protest with her friend Alice - Pen hopes the day will turn into a date but it transpires that Alice has a secret of her own. Beautifully written, I didn't enjoy this as much as Emilie Pine's essays, 'Notes to Self' but I'm still very glad I read it and would definitely recommend it.

I didn't connect to this as much as everybody else seem to have, I found the characters a little dry perhaps? Not sure if that's an unfair assessment. But the writing was really great. I think for me personally I am just more intrigued to read Emilie Pine's Essay Collection.

*** I received an early complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own

Somewhere between 3 - 3.5

I loved Emilie Pine's debut Notes to Self so was intrigued when I saw she had written a novel. In many ways Ruth & Pen tackles similar themes - a character struggling with a miscarriage, the relationship women have with their bodies, the intricacies of close personal relationships - and the writing is often similarly excellent. I said of Pine's essay collection that she vocalised thoughts and feelings I have/have had but wasn't quite able to acknowledge myself until I saw it written on the page, and I think this transferred well to Ruth & Pen with the internal thoughts of the main characters feeling scarily real at times. The way Ruth and Pen's stories (and how they converge) are cleverly told, and meant the novel read very quickly.

All that said, something held me back from really enjoying this and from it being a 4* read... and identifying what that something was is a little harder to put my finger on! All the other reviews of this are more positive than mine, so if this sounds like it'd be up your street then I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

Ruth & Pen shares many themes and concerns with Emilie Pine's excellent essay collection from a couple of years ago, Notes to Self. Like that book, it is vivid, precisely observed and often harrowing, but it's also a really engaging novel. It's cleverly but unobtrusively structured, the chapters alternating initially between the central figures of Ruth, whose marriage is in trouble following difficulties with IVF, and Pen, a neurodivergent teenager who attends a climate demonstration with her friend Alice. Their paths overlap a couple of times over the course of a single day in Dublin (Joyce is invisible but inescapable) and chapters gradually also open up to some of the other characters, like Ruth's husband, Aidan, who is reluctant to return home from London, and Alice. Pine manages to get beneath the surface of these figures, showing Ruth's grief at her inability to conceive and Pen's struggles to adapt herself to the world really well. There are some lovely descriptions - such as as Ruth's mother's characterisation of Dublin as "a bit grubby, a bit corrupt, a bit beautiful' - which guide the reader through the anguish and confusion of the narrative. It's not an easy read (who wants one of those?) but the ending is perhaps surprisingly closer to happy than sad and the sum of the novel is greater than its impressive component parts.

I have just stayed up all night to read this. I could not put it down. Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I felt connected to the characters

Emilie Pine is a beautiful writer and Notes to Self was one of my favorite books of recent years so I was very excited to get an early copy of Ruth and Pen. It's the dual tale of an older and younger woman navigating life and relationships in modern day Dublin. Pine clearly loves her characters and her city and the story is told with great care and attention. For me, Ruth's story was more compelling and I'd love to read more.

In this beautifully observed debut, Pine takes us through a day in the life, weaving in histories and humanity in the manner of Mrs Dalloway (which at one point itself gets a nod from Pen). A startlingly intimate portrait of its two protagonists and those closest to them. Wonderful.

Ruth and Pen by Emilie Pine is about a woman struggling with fertility issues and problems in her marriage and an autistic teenage girl protesting climate change and exploring her sexuality. It sometimes felt like two different books to me.

Emilie Pine’s debut novel is nothing short of utterly beautiful. It follows a day in the life of two unrelated characters, 16 year old neurodivergent Pen and I’m guessing, thirty-something year old therapist Ruth. There is also a number of other important characters, Pen’s best friend Alice, Pen’s Mother Claire, and Ruth’s husband Aidan.

Pine’s ability to submerge the reader in the characters emotions is something special, you really feel everything they are feeling in a certain moment. Ruth and Aidan’s story of the impact 4 rounds of failed IVF treatment, including a miscarriage, has had on their marriage is particularly raw, the reader is completely submerged in their grief and the impact it has had on them both individually.

Pine also superbly manages to capture Pen’s messy neurodivergent thoughts as she battles falling in love with her best friend Alice. Grief is a huge theme throughout but Ruth & Pen js also full of hope and healing, an exceptional character study.

A stunning debut, I can’t wait to see what more Emilie Pine has to come.

I LOVED this book! Pine's first book was great but this was a whole new level - what beautiful writing! Can't wait to see what she writes next.

Ruth's marriage may be falling apart. Pen is a teenager who wants her friend Alice to love her. Both women struggle to express themselves but know that they must.

This story is told over the space of twenty four hours. Set in Dublin, Pine alternates Ruth and Pen's timeline - and at one point their stories overlap. This is just an ordinary day for most people, but for Ruth and Pen, their future and their very selves depend on what happens in this moment. Pine's skill in showing how the ordinary and the extraordinary can co-exist in the same space, is incredible.

This is written with an amazing economy and yet you feel you miss nothing. If anything, you find yourself so close to the characters it becomes unbearably intimate. The more you understand them, the less able they seem to connect with the people that matter most to them and at times, the world around them.

This book is full of pain and sorrow and the difficulties of showing who we truly are, even to the people who we love and who love us. It is also full of love and hope.

Ruth is wondering if her marriage is about to break up after a few turbulent years.
Pine is a 16 year old with autism who is in love with her best friend.
The book goes through a pivotal day in their lives, during which they briefly cross paths.
Occasionally we hear the voices of Pine’s mother and friend, and Ruths husband.

Having read Emilie Pine’s essay collection, “Notes to Self”, I was eager to read Pine’s first novel. At first I was disappointed. It took a bit of time to figure out what was going on with each character, and wonder if paths were going to join. I found some of the writing a bit like a lecture (explaining the word idiom or Latin origins of words) and was wondering if I would keep reading.

As I got to learn more about the characters, I began to enjoy the detail of Pine’s writing. So many of the scenes were so detailed and relatable, I felt Pine was giving me words for situations that I wouldn’t have been able to express myself. In many paragraphs, the ordinariness of the events (eg having tea away from home) are made extraordinary but the writing.

Most of the activity happens between Grafton Street and Holles Street, so anybody familiar with that area of Dublin will like how relatable the story is. I agree Hansel and Gretel is an odd name for a coffee shop! I also recall the activists camping in Merrion Square, so there is almost a non-fiction reality about the book, even though it is fiction.