Evenings & Weekends Review: Everyone Is Having A Crisis (And Apparently Almost Everyone Is Queer?) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🚨 SPOILER WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS FULL PLOT DETAILS AND ENDING DISCUSSION 🚨
📚 Quick Stats
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 stars)
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
Pregnancy / abortion
Sexual assault / coercive sexual experiences
Cancer
Death of a parent
Homophobia / antigay bias
Substance use
Mental illness / suicidal thoughts
Animal death
Grief
Emotional abuse
Explicit sexual content
Climate anxiety
Financial hardship
What Is Evenings & Weekends About?
Evenings & Weekends by Oisín McKenna is one giant messy web of relationships set during a miserable, sweaty London heatwave where absolutely nobody seems emotionally stable ☀️🥵
The novel follows multiple interconnected characters over a single June weekend in 2019 while a stranded whale in the Thames becomes an obsession for the city.
At the center are:
🐳 Maggie and Ed, a struggling couple facing an unplanned pregnancy
🏠 Phil, Maggie's lifelong friend navigating complicated relationships, trauma, housing instability, and an identity crisis that somehow manages to get even more complicated
🚲 A collection of parents, friends, exes, lovers, neighbors, and people making increasingly questionable life decisions during one very hot weekend
And honestly? The whale somehow becomes one of the least depressing things happening.
The Heatwave, The Whale, And Approximately 400 Emotional Breakdowns
One thing this book absolutely nails is atmosphere.
You can practically feel the sticky apartments, crowded trains, sweat, financial anxiety, and overall feeling of "if one more minor inconvenience happens I might collapse."
The stranded whale works surprisingly well as this weird background symbol for everyone slowly realizing their lives are not functioning the way they pretend they are.
Because almost every character here is barely holding it together.
Ed thinks he may be hallucinating after taking LSD.
Phil is spiraling over relationships.
Maggie is trying to figure out if she actually wants the future she planned.
Everyone is broke.
Everyone is exhausted.
Everyone needs therapy.
As someone who enjoys messy interpersonal relationship books, this absolutely delivered 🍿
My Biggest Issue: Why Does Everyone Feel 19 Years Old? 😭
This was probably my biggest disconnect.
These characters are mostly around their late 20s and early 30s.
Yet SO much of the behavior feels less like "millennials facing adulthood" and more like:
"we just left freshman orientation and are making catastrophic decisions for the first time."
The communication?
Terrible.
The emotional regulation?
Nonexistent.
The decision-making?
Absolutely terrifying.
I understand that emotional immaturity is partially the point—but there were several moments where I had to remind myself repeatedly:
"Wait...these are adults."
Not college students.
Adults.
Let's Address The Elephant In The Room (Or Maybe The Rainbow Whale?) 🌈
I honestly don't know exactly how I feel about this part.
A huge portion of the cast is LGBTQ+, queer social spaces dominate much of the novel, and queer relationships make up a substantial amount of the interpersonal drama.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But I did sometimes find myself noticing how heavily concentrated it felt within this specific social circle.
To be fair, the book is clearly depicting particular communities and friend groups within London—and friend groups absolutely can look like this.
Still, there were moments where I found myself very aware of how specific the social ecosystem was.
Whether that works for you probably depends heavily on what you're looking for going in.
Full Plot Summary + Ending Explained 🐳💔
So here is where everything completely falls apart.
Ed and Maggie are already struggling financially while facing an unplanned pregnancy and preparing to move back to Basildon because London is simply becoming impossible.
Then Ed nearly cheats.
Sort of.
He follows a man for some anonymous sex at Liverpool Street station before being accidentally interrupted by Phil, who coincidentally is pursuing the same guy.
(You know. Normal weekend activities.)
Phil spends much of the book dealing with his deeply complicated relationship with Keith while also wrestling with trauma from a coercive sexual encounter years earlier.
Meanwhile:
Phil's mother Rosaleen secretly has cancer
Keith and Phil may lose housing
Maggie feels increasingly disconnected from both London and her friends
Ed becomes increasingly confused about his sexuality and identity
Everyone continuously avoids difficult conversations
Naturally, this goes poorly.
Things finally explode during Phil's warehouse party.
Kyle reveals that Ed has a history with men.
Phil admits he knew.
Maggie discovers people around her understood parts of her relationship better than she did.
Chaos ensues.
The following morning Ed confesses everything:
his sexual history
a prior encounter with Phil when they were teenagers
nearly hooking up with a stranger days earlier
Maggie decides they cannot continue their relationship.
Eventually Maggie chooses to have an abortion.
Importantly, the novel doesn't frame this moment dramatically or as a simple solution.
Instead it becomes part of this larger feeling throughout the book:
sometimes adulthood means realizing the life you imagined is not actually the life you want.
Meanwhile:
❤️ Phil and Keith finally admit they love each other
❤️ Rosaleen finally tells Phil she has cancer
❤️ Maggie moves temporarily to Berlin
❤️ Ed and Maggie remain caring toward one another despite separating
❤️ The whale dies (which honestly feels emotionally consistent with this book)
The ending is surprisingly hopeful.
Not because everything becomes perfect.
But because people finally begin telling the truth.
The final scenes with Rosaleen returning to Ireland and speaking openly about Pauline (a late best friend who she had some physical intimacy with) were especially lovely and unexpectedly emotional.
Final Thoughts
This book feels like:
✨ climate anxiety
✨ housing crisis panic
✨ relationship disasters
✨ identity confusion
✨ one extremely unfortunate whale
I had a really good time with this even when the characters occasionally made me want to scream.
If you enjoy ensemble casts, relationship drama, messy friendships, and books where people continuously make decisions that force you to pause and stare into the distance, this may work for you.
Did everyone feel their age?
No.
Did I still enjoy watching the disaster unfold?
Absolutely.
4 stars.
If You Liked This, Try These 📚
📖 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin— messy friendships, adulthood, complicated relationships
📖 Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson — London atmosphere and emotional intimacy
📖 Cleanness by Garth Greenwell— queer relationships, intimacy, identity
📖 The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue— messy millennials making questionable choices
📖 Real Life by Brandon Taylor— complicated people being complicated
Comments
Post a Comment