Reviewed: “Mailbox: A Scattershot Novel…” by Nancy Freund

Books a best when read with friends, as I’m sure MAILBOX narrator Sandy Drue would agree, so when a friend said she got MAILBOX from the “Read Now” ARC shelf at NetGalley, I did too.

Nancy Freund’s “scattershot novel” is a collection of seventy-five super short stories, some not more than a paragraph or two, which are really the diary of Sandy Drue as she ages from eight to twelve or so. The appeal of this book, disjointed though it sometimes seemed, was that I identify with Sandy Drue. Freund places her in time about two decades before I was those ages but she gives Sandy the thoughts I had, Sandy writes things like what I wrote (or would have written if I’d been better at keeping a diary), and Sandy talks like I talked when faced with the changes of childhood to not yet adulthood.

All that being said, I think I would have liked the book more if it was a proper novel told from Sandy’s perspective, because I love Sandy. Less random essays and more story, that sort of thing.

And all that being said, MAILBOX is an excellent way to spend a few hours.

(I received a copy of MAILBOX through NetGalley and Gobreau Press LLC in exchange for an honest and original review.)