Until Next Weekend by Rachel Marks
Published by Penguin Michael Joseph
29th April 2021
Noah and Kate were meant to be together forever. The Problem? In six weeks Kate is marrying someone else…
Noah and Kate had been together for years and have two little boys Gabe, 8 and Finn, 4. But then Kate left, taking the boys with her. Noah hates being a weekend dad and misses being around his boys all the time, over compensating by spoiling them every weekend. As a primary school teacher he is spending more time with his students than his own children. As his frustrations rise he makes an increasing number of bad decisions. Heavy drinking, cancelling his weekends at the last minute and one night stands are not going to see him win dad of the year anytime soon. He decides he’s got to pull his finger out and win Kate back before she marries boring and sensible Jerry.
I have to admit I found Noah a frustrating character at times. His reckless decision making gives Kate many reasons to feel exasperated with him but actually those flaws made him far more real.
I loved the classroom scenes and his relationship with four year old Harley, who has recently transferred from another school and is having his own struggles, was lovely and gave the novel a real depth that it might otherwise have missed for me.
The novel really tore through my emotions, sad and heart-wrenching in parts, infuriating at times and hilarious, funny and uplifting in others.
Whilst I read plenty of this genre of fiction, the protagonists are nearly always female so this made a really nice change and was lovely to have a different perspective.
Great book, which has led to me searching out Rachel’s previous novel Saturdays At Noon.
