A lyrical, and lyric-filled, portrait of a family in love and sorrow. This whimsical, bittersweet debut novel recalls the work of filmmaker Wes Anderson... the focus is on three Salinger-esque siblings... there is something iridescent about this novel.

Starred Review

A sharply observed and bittersweet family romance with a rock ’n’ roll heart.... Reilly’s dreamy, slipstream style dazzles.

April 2016 Issue

Claudio and Mathilde Simone have three daughters, each with their own very distinct personality. Burdened by one daughter's heart condition and the battle to make ends meet, Sunday's on the Phone to Monday depicts an atypical family's hardship in an intimate tale of love and mending.

in "The Best Books to Read This Winter"

Christine Reilly’s shimmering debut hurls us into the beating center of the Simone family, and our attachment is immediate and lasting. Both tender and dark, big-hearted and heart-breaking, Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is a book you won’t forget, filled with quiet power and roaring truths.

Author of The Fever, Dare Me, and The End of Everything

Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday reveals how trouble, when visited upon a loving family, can be transformed—if imperfectly—by curiosity, empathy, and imagination. We’re in a poet’s hands; every sentence here crackles with electric vitality. This is a unique and big-hearted novel.

Author of The Virgins

Reilly’s debut novel explores how a love evolves as responsibilities mount for two parents with three very different daughters…deft in her characterizations…full of imaginative anecdotes and vibrant details…Reilly’s first novel is touching and nostalgic.

Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is an energetic, captivating, and lyrical debut. Here is a writer with a wonderfully eccentric way of seeing the world, weaving a family story both whimsical and profound, in which each character is dealt with tenderly, and each sentence is an adventure. Christine Reilly is a talent to watch.

Author of The Mermaid of Brooklyn and How Far Is The Ocean From Here

Reminiscent of Lorrie Moore, and J.D. Salinger, and “Mr and Mrs Bridge,” Sunday's on the Phone to Monday is a beautiful thing, the kind of book a poet would dream a novel was.

Author of Big Fish and Kings and Queens of Roam

Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is a prismatic and moving exploration of how the past can haunt, motivate, and ultimately heal us—or in the words of Natasha Simone, “Memory can be like medicine.” With great empathy and a keen eye for the offbeat detail, Christine Reilly depicts a family unique in its troubles but universal in its longing to overcome them. Reilly is masterful in her illumination of the inner lives of her characters.

Author of Yes, Yes, Cherries

With subtle genius and a wide-open heart, Christine Reilly invites us into a world that is at once strange and familiar. A stunning debut.

Author of I Knew You'd be Lovely

Sunday's on the Phone to Monday is a fantastic love letter to New York City. This is a multi-generational story of death and life, illness and wellness. Reilly is the undisputed master at spinning poetry into prose. Her words are arresting, poignant, and searingly optimistic.

Author of Unfriending My Ex

A lyrical and poetic look at family, love, and loss.

A novel that tells the story of one family; how each family member's life diverged from the hopes and expectations they had for themselves, and how together they'll survive the loves and losses that life holds.

in "11 Books You'll Be Hooked On From The First Line"

Fiction has a longstanding affection for complicated New York families (the Glasses and the Tenenbaums come to mind), and the tribe of five at the center of Christine Reilly’s rich debut is no different...Do novels have soundtracks? If so, we’d want to stream this one.

in "Best Books of April 2016"

With clever chapter titles and an index of themes, Reilly’s debut is structurally expressive, especially with the dialogue in italics, which creatively establishes a sense of interiority and intuitive communication between the Simones. A compelling family tale rich in vivid and relatable struggles.