A refreshingly unsentimental novel about the dissolution of a marriage, and what it means to be a ‘good’ mother

Everything will be fine. That is what Mary and John promise when they tell their two children that they are getting a divorce. But the separation becomes wildly different from what they had both imagined.

John is quickly scooped up by a new woman while Mary is forced to realise that an adult woman without a partner is not an uncomplicated matter in the eyes of society. While John moves on with both the children's trust and his personal finances intact, Mary – who has spent her life living for the approval of others – must reevaluate herself, her choices and her life.

Opt Out is a searing reckoning with the limitations of marriage and gender roles, and an examination of the image of the good mother. Smart, intimate and emotionally astute, it is a story about family and love – for better or for worse – and the difficulties of breaking away from the constraints of one life in pursuit of another.

Praise for Carolina Setterwall and Let’s Hope for the Best

'I've read it twice now ... Utterly compulsive' Marian Keyes
'I think the world should read it' Lisa Taddeo
'Brutally candid … The most compelling book I've read in years' The Times
'It's impossible not to draw comparisons with Karl Ove Knausgaard' Evening Standard
'Every spare, controlled sentence has the ring of truth … Gripping' Daily Mail