Happy Release Day!
on the release today of
The Untended!
The Untended by Mattea Krame
Psychological Fiction, 312 pages
Published May 6, 2025 by She Writes Press
For fans of Rachel Kushner and Gillian Flynn, a gritty contemporary debut novel that puts Katniss Everdeen into Euphoria.
Casch Abbey is a waitress, single mom, and recreational boxer who falls in love first with a veteran who secretly grows pot on a rich man’s land in Vermont’s Green Mountains, and then with a painkiller that eases her long-buried pain.
After her foot is crushed under the wheel of a station wagon, Casch loses her waitressing gig and goes broke—and the meds for her foot are her only source of relief. But when the drug is recalled due to outcries of widespread addiction, Casch’s dependence imperils her already tenuous life, as cravings lead her into her small town’s simmering netherworld.
Intimate and exhilarating, The Untended will upend your every assumption about who is a hero and who is worthy of love.
My thoughts about The Untended ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)
First lines—"Just off the interstate at the Greenfield exit, it was humid inside The 99."
I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I started this book. I didn't know much about the storyline other than what I read in the synopsis. I didn't expect to come to like and respect Casch, the main character, a woman and single mom who struggled with drug addiction.
This is an eye-opening story about how far down someone can go and the lengths that they will go to, to come back up to the top again. Drug addiction is a real problem in the world and The Untended gives us glimpse of how easy it is to spiral out of control, thanks to the availability of drugs.
This wasn't always an easy story to read but I'm glad I stuck it out and got to enjoy the satisfying ending. The Untended was well worth my reading time.
I received an ARC of The Untended and this is my honest opinion of the book.
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About the author
Mattea Kramer is an American writer. She writes about drugs, power and powerlessness, and the voice in your head. She's been published in The Guardian, The Nation, Mother Jones, Guernica, and The Washington Post, and she has appeared on MSNBC and on radio stations across the country.
Her first novel The Untended will be published in May 2025.
Connect with Mattea
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