Thankyou for this ARC.

This story was a ride. A short book that packs such an emotional punch. I was hooked and couldn't put it down. I cried, laughed, was infuriated, feeling all the emotions with the characters. So well written. Beautiful prose.
Such an interesting structure of story telling that worked so well - starting at the end and working backwards. I loved picking up on the hints and details. Finding out the significance of objects and situations after always seeing how it ends. I thought this was very well done and I'll be picking up a copy when it's released.

A beautiful and poetic account of a couple's enduring relationship over 60 years, through initial heady romance to old age, taking in the birth of children, changing circumstances, affairs and counselling along the way. It illustrates the power of love, which triumphs even after the relationship appears to have broken down. Bittersweet and poignant.

A very good story. It is told from the end to the beginning. It’s written so it is easy to follow. Very touching and memorable.

A Couple is a story of love unfolding.

We meet our lovers 50+ years into knowing each other and walk backward towards their youth. I really enjoyed the beginning for its thoughts on aging, uselessness, and the aimlessness one can encounter past a certain point.

Once we started to learn more about Alice, I began to get a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Because this is a story of love, I hadn't been expecting any bitter truths. I think the story took off in a direction that I am not a massive fan of. However, I must give this novel credit. I am not a very emotional reader and wince at any signs of sentimentality in a book. Jule's and Alice's feelings felt believeable to me, and although expressed quite boldly, I didn't feel too over the top. When you've known someone so long, I bet you have a lot to say about them.

Overall, I didn't connect with the narrative as much as I would have liked. I do recommend this to people who have an interest in the lasting nature of love or at least the fight that can be staying in love and the losses one may face along the way. Maybe even having to consider if it was a love worthy of such a struggle in the first place.

Thank you to NetGalley and Arctis Books for providing an eARC of A Couple in exchange for my honest opinions.

Publishing October 13th, 2025

I really liked the premise, a love story told in reverse. There’s something beautiful about moving backward through a relationship, experiencing the highs, the lows, and finally arriving at the moment they first met. It felt raw, difficult, and constantly shifting.

That said, while the concept was compelling, the writing (or perhaps the translation) felt a bit choppy at times. I’m not sure if that was intentional, but it definitely affected my ability to stay engaged. On top of that, I struggled to root for any of the characters. They lacked the kind of redeeming qualities that usually pull me in, and the emotional weight of their strife ended up overshadowing any sense of romance.

Overall, the idea was strong, but the execution just didn’t quite land for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Arctis Books, and Eliette Abecassis for the opportunity to read this book and provide my honest review!

A Couple is a story told in reverse chronological order about a married couple, Jules and Alice. The novel exposes desires that bubble under the surface of a status quo marriage. Jules is yearning for freedom from his past and the expectations of his present, while Alice is desperate for more than being a wife and a mother. The novel takes place across a span of time and the author does a nice job interweaving details from the time period to provide a broader picture of how Jules and Alice's marriage is operating in the cultural context. Some of the context requires previous knowledge (or a willingness to do some research) about different revolutionary happenings in France / Europe. I found the time-hopping to be mildly confusing and found myself flipping back to double check which time period I was in for some of the chapters. Overall this novel is well written and tells a heartbreaking tale of a couple trapped by their expectations for themselves and their spouse.

Thank you Arctis Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Maybe some aspects got lost in translation but I did find this book depressing and extremely sad. It could be the fact I read it on holidays but it just bummed me out I thought it was gonna be romantic sweet holiday read but that’s not the case

I enjoyed the structure in reverse order as the chapters continued. I liked the love aspect overall. The writing style flowed well and I enjoyed the aspect of love. Something felt missing and I didn’t love it. I thought the going in reverse would be great but I do feel some things were lacking from it. However it was a good read and I was rooting for the characters.

To be published in October 2025, this slim, sharp, novel tracks the stately maelstrom of Alice and Jules’ marriage with a forensic eye.

The story is told in reverse chronological order, so we meet the couple first in their late 80s, estranged by illness and time. Their history unfolds through the tumult of time, world events, and crises in their native France, all the way back to the days when they dazzled and consumed each other.

We find Alice to be introverted, but loving and capable, increasingly aware that she’s being overlooked, and Jules politically progressive, and outwardly committed, but with a fatal blind spot when it comes to the emotional and domestic labour that underpins their life.

Chiming with my recent read of @ellie_levenson’s smart Room 706, we find a marriage assailed by a steady crescendo of unspoken resentments: who does the school run, the laundry, the emotional patchwork that holds the household together? Abécassis writes with a cool clarity and wry humour, capturing the alarming dichotomy of being deeply loved in theory, while fading into the background in practice.

What struck me was the book’s empathy for both: Jules isn’t villainised, but shown as someone trapped by inertia and blind to his own assumptions. And Alice—still respectful of the life they’ve built—begins to feel the stirring of something more, something quieter than rebellion, but no less profound.

This isn’t an attack on marriage, but a delicate study of how love buckles under the weight of routine, expectation, and the suspicion - despite all the love and goodness in a life - that one has missed out on something, and been untrue to one’s sense of self. And when two people have been so close, so enmeshed and blended, for so many years, whose history is whose?

A Couple is brief but beautifully sharp, offering up the honest ache of wanting more without losing what matters. It’s a small book that knows exactly how to linger.

This book tells a love story in reverse—starting at the end of the couple’s life when they no longer recognize each other and slowly working back through the years to when they first met. I actually really liked that narrative structure.

What didn’t work for me was the message behind the relationship itself. While I think the goal was to show a love that endures despite hardship, it didn’t land that way. The story includes two separate instances of infidelity, which I assume were meant to add realism or demonstrate resilience.. but instead, I felt it removed the emotional weight of their bond.

Worse still, the traits they once loved about each other gradually became the very things they resented. By the end (or rather, the beginning), it didn’t feel like a couple who survived life together.. it felt like two people who stayed because they thought they should, not because they truly wanted to.

Thought-provoking in structure, but emotionally unconvincing.

I got this ARC from Netgalley and all I can say is that the story is beautifully heartbreaking in so many ways. You can relate to Jules and Alice and their story and how, eventually, we’ll experience the same things they did.
10/10 would recommend

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This was a beautiful and unique book, a story of a marriage told in reverse. When it starts, Jules and Alice are in their 80s. But as the book goes on you learn of the struggles they had, the affairs, historical events they endured, good times, children, the fights, all the way to when they first started. This book was magical in the way it makes us as the reader look at life in this way. I found myself reflecting on things I may think are tough in my life but then remember how and why they started and became a part of my life. This is a relatable book for me and probably for everyone who reads it. I was swept away by the realistic marriage of this couple.