Freelance writer and recent empty-nester Rocky is a hot mess, both literally and figuratively. Jamie, her 24-year-old son, is gainfully employed in another city, while 20-year-old daughter Willa is pursuing a degree in biology. Many things have changed over the years, but one thing has remained: the tradition of a family trip in the same undersized rental house. Sure, they're now joined by Jamie's girlfriend Maya, and Willa keeps disappearing to spend time with the cute girl from the surf shop, and Rocky can't stop blurting out her inappropriate thoughts and questions or having hot flashes or picking fights with her husband Nick...but who cares?

The reader spends time in Rocky's chaotic, hormonal inner life over the course of a week spent in a too-small rental home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Everything's changing—her body, her marriage, the life trajectories of the kids—and through it all burns a confusing, white-hot rage that she struggles to keep under control. Sandwich is Catherine Newman's second novel, although she's written some non-fiction books as well as some illustrated books for children. 

Reading this book was a visceral experience, and I mean that in the best possible way. I feel like I shrugged inside Rocky's body like an ill-fitting coat. While I am twenty years younger than Rocky, I'm no stranger to hormonal woes, so I had no problem imagining what she was feeling. I appreciated the scatterbrainedness of it all, the hyperfocusing on detailed memories that so perfectly encapsulated the amusing exhaustion that is parenting young kids woven together with clumsy attempts at learning how to navigate relationships with adult children, aging parents, and a spouse she's relearning now that they finally have more than five minutes to themselves.

If you aren't much for slice-of-life or introspective style novels, especially one with a deeply flawed narrator, this may not be the read for you. Lower-rated reviews refer to Rocky's infuriating actions and thoughts, and they're not wrong. She makes many missteps and even grave errors, both on the current year's trip and in the past, and to be honest I'm not sure she learns from them. I'm fine with that, because I'm a melancholy anxious depressive who doesn't mind loose ends in a book like this, but if you won't be, this may a title to release back into the wild for another wanderer to find.