4.5 stars.
A sophisticated and insightful read about a couple's marriage dissolving, and their identities going through multitudes of little changes and incidents during that.
By the end, you feel as if you have known Mary and John in real life.
Authentic, raw, and fresh.

The story of a marriage breakdown and what happens afterwards is hardly new territory but I’ve rarely read anything which covers it so powerfully. There are no big dramas as a catalyst for the separation, just a realisation that perhaps they were never actually perfect for each other and that they must stay in each other’s lives as they share two children. It’s very beautifully balanced – neither Mary nor John are perfect, both have their very clear flaws, but neither are they in any way bad people, only different. Everyone who reads it is likely to have a perspective on who is better or worse, who is more to blame, but it’s going to be very subjective and everyone will have their own take.

The writing is superb – it’s not in any way flashy but it is completely engrossing and believable and I was as gripped by it all as if it were a thriller. It’s funny and moving and gut wrenching all at the same time, and it’s absolutely wonderful. Highly, highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

Can you opt out of living the life society expects of you?

We alternate between Mary and John who split up at the start of the book and then we watch how their lives unfold.

John is someone who wants the expected life of being married with kids, a good job and a nice home. He struggles and often fails to contain his rage whenever anyone does something that takes him off that track, but he is also very passive and without agency and lets others drive his life.

Mary on the other hand wants to live in the moment and have fun and does not care about the future or what people think. This can lead her to make self destructive decisions but like John, when decisions need to be made in her life she lets other people do that.

We get to see how these people are utterly different but also very similar. Even though both have very different attitudes to how much they will conform to societal expectations, the insecurities they have about how well they achieve this are very comparable.

Opt Out gives me a heavy and heartbreaking sense of the collapse of the illusions we often construct around marriage and family. Carolina Setterwall has created a work that shows the deep contradictions in modern relationships without reserve. This is not just a story about divorce, but about how to be reborn after realizing that the life you have lived is not really yours. Mary must learn to live without needing anyone's approval - a lesson that many women only have the chance to learn when it is too late.
This piece made me ponder whether we are truly free to choose our own lives or are we just playing roles that society has assigned us. And more importantly, is it ever “too late” to start over?

What a beautiful and poignant book about divorce and finding love again and what that looks like for each party. I found it very interesting and heart wrenching and hopeful at the same time.