Welcome to Litsy!

I was drinking coffee with my oldest/longest friend (from 7th grade) on New Year‘s Day & telling her about this book I was reading. I couldn‘t get across to her the delight/sorrow I was experiencing while reading it. Finally I said, “imagine a situation where your children are delightfully emotionally brilliant, your best/longest friend is dying, your ex-hubby is a great cook, and you can share the humor & sadness of it all in a book.” It‘s good.

Not entirely connecting with this, but maybe that's a good thing? It's very honest and a little messy, which seems appropriate.

I think I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I just didn‘t connect with the main character, and I truly could not keep the J names straight in my mind (Jules, Jude, Jonah, Junior and Jelly). I enjoyed the ending though, and like a book that can make me cry! (29)
⭐️: 3/5

This book is like life. So many things at once. Devastatingly sad and messy but so joyous too. I‘m blessed to have friends who are my family. LOVED this book! 💙🩵💛

I found the mc pretty annoying for most of the book, the family/friends dynamic is foreign to me (I can't imagine having a friend I'm close enough with that they could be my hospice caregiver or vice versa), and I have a bias against books about people from NYC (I'm just sick of them), but even with all of those things, this is a beautifully written book. The portrayal of death, loss, and grief feel true to me. Now I need to read something light.

I'm glad I left enough time to dry my eyes and blow my nose after listening to this on my ride to class today. And that I didn't decide to wear mascara today. Oof. I might wait until I get home to listen to the rest so I'm not driving and crying.

#motivationalmonday

1. Between paid work, volunteer work, and school work, I have SO MUCH to do. And my son has a band concert Wednesday, so that's fun.

2. The dusty table and chairs on my back patio.

3. Southern California. Kind of chilly for April, but reasonably sunny.

4. I'm not really liking this one.

@Cupcake12

A woman caring for her lifelong best friend while she is in hospice. While this book does not hold back on the tears and grief there is also laughter and the general messiness of life. As much as Ash frustrated me at times I still found myself wishing for a friend like her. Great on audio,

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Novel written as the memoir of a middle aged woman caring for her best friend as she‘s in hospice dying of cancer. Overall really enjoyed it. Got exasperated with the MC 2/3 through but her dying friend telling her that yes, she WAS judging the MC for some of her questionable behavior helped.

Hello Beautiful got knocked out early but actually was one of my favs of the year along with the top two. #yearinreview

Another one I had to listen to twice because I had difficulty keeping track of who was who the first time around. Jonah/Jude/Jules. Tough in an audiobook.
I did like the story though. I love reading about friends and family banding together in difficult situations; love details and the nitty gritty about people‘s daily lives; love inside jokes 💖

You know this isn‘t going to be an easy read from the start. But it is also sweet, funny, snarky, and really quite lovely. There‘s a lot more about life in this little book than you‘d perhaps expect. There‘s also the privileged-New-Yorker-self-absorption which should be annoying yet I always fall for. But, your heart will break; proceed with caution if you need to be gentle with yourself regarding grief. And do not read on the train 😳

1. No Two Persons
2. The Bullet that Missed
3. The Last Ranger by Peter Heller
4. The new Angie Kim
5. It Ends With Us
6. The Drift 5⭐️
7. New to me - Erica Bauermeister
8. Will from Hello Beautiful
9. We All Want Impossible Things
10. The Windsor Knot
11. Beautiful cover? I‘ll say The Wishing Game
12. More series for my #SeriesLove2023 goal.
#MidYearBookFreakOut
@TheSpineView

Thank you for putting this book on my radar @Cinfhen I read it in one day and it was so astoundingly perfect.
I have a friend going through this, it‘s the last days now and I‘ve had my final visit with her (didn‘t know it was the final visit at the time😢) Time for the family to gather around her. I really needed to think about it and have a cry and so on and I‘d just had this book turn up at the library. It was messy and real and perfect. ⬇️

#BookReport 18/23

I didn‘t enjoy Gospel much but the other three were really good. So I had a wonderful week!

This book broke my heart but it‘s also a super loving tribute to love and friendship. Edi is dying in a hospice and her friends and family are taking care of her there. Ash is her best friend and she has such a hard time. Reminiscing, supporting, grieving, laughing. It‘s messy and beautiful and I loved the dynamics of Ash and her daughters - or her people as she calls them.

(Pic: Les Tuileries, Paris)

This might be the funniest saddest book I‘ve ever read! As her best friend enters hospice, Ash vows to make Edi‘s final days as joyous as possible because that‘s what a best friend does despite the fact that Ash seems to be having a mini midlife crises. This story is a powerful nod to female friendship & facing death with love, laughter and bravery. MUST HAVE TISSUES!!! Narration was fantastic. 5 ⭐️

OMG! THIS BOOK! It‘s so achingly beautiful and sad and yet humorous- a lot like life. Best friends since childhood, Edi & Ash -one faces death while the other has to face what living without your best friend looks like. Narration is near perfection 🙌🏻

5-9 Apr 23 (audiobook)
Heartbreaking and endearing, this is the story of Ash as she supports the woman who has been her best friend since pre-school through palliative care. Newman manages to imbue her story with humour, fleshed-out supporting characters and real pathos, plus many grotesque details of dying. Both Ash and Edi have magnificent husbands and wonderful children and a truly beautiful friendship.
Not as miserable as it sounds.

Thanks Trish. Loving the look of these books. This tagged book is one I‘ve been watching for awhile now 💛💛 Thankyou 😘 @TrishB

This is a sad book about a woman whose best friend is in hospice.

Sounds awfully depressing, right?

At one point, the main character says it's the saddest and happiest she's ever been.

I can relate. When my mom was dying, I was so sad, but also so happy that my family (dad, brother, sister) was able to come together and spend an extended amount of time with mom.

We laughed, cried, and prayed together.

And it was such a blessing to be there.

#StoryGraph: fiction contemporary emotional reflective sad
217 pages • first pub 2022

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. When Edi is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care. Yes, this is a very sad book, but it‘s worth the read for all the emotions.

NovelTea with book quotes, Meyer lemon cookies and a 5⭐️ book all curtesy of the wonderful @LaraReads and #muglove23. The book is sad but also heartwarming and funny.

If you can have a book set in hospice with a happy ending, this was it. So sad, but somehow also feel good.

Much as it seems a bit weird to say I really enjoyed a book that is essentially about someone dying (not a spoiler- in the blurb!), I really did. I think because it felt very real. I have done this bedside vigilance and it‘s difficult and you find life, humour and support where you can.

#bookmail
Looking forward to these!

This is a strange book. Part grief, part midlife crisis & part celebration of life‘s small moments. At first I wasn‘t a fan. Ash is helping her friend Edi through hospice care & seems so unmoored & selfish. But the farther I got into the book the more I connected with it. We all deal w/loss in different ways. It‘s easy for 1 person to hold everyone they love tighter & for another to wonder what they‘ve done w/their life & toss it all to the wind.

This was a book I #meanttoreadin2022 #pop23 but, despite knowing that it‘s about Ash‘s best friend Edi, who has terminal cancer and is in hospice care, I found it too much to start with so hibernated it. However, it ended up being heartwarming as well as heartbreaking. It‘s more about Ash, who is hilarious and a hot mess, but learns about herself through caring for Edi.

#netgalley - published next week in the UK

#tripledip

Edi and Ash have been best friends for over 40 years. When Edi is diagnosed with cancer, it is Ash who walks her through her last weeks. While it is about death, it is not at all depressing or overly heavy. Instead, the focus is on the memories of their friendship and the sacred, confusing, often beautiful process of saying goodbye. Such a lovely book.

This grid took a while to build - intact it expands across two years (haha). I did take a bit of a reading break last week to evaluate my end-of-year reading stats. Two stand out books and my favorite is tagged!

5* = Loved It, want to shout out loud about this book! I do/will own/keep a physical copy. A+
4*= I liked it, would love to discuss. Solid B
3*=Meh, no need to discuss. Average C
2*=Nope D
1*=DNF F

It‘s such an honor (sad as it is) to sit hospice with a loved one, and this book honors that experience so well. This is really Ash‘s story as she sits with her lifelong bestie, Edi. She admits her own flaws while highlighting the goodness on the wonderful friends checking in on her and Edi. Honey, Ash‘s sort of ex-husband, is a dream and Belle is a hoot, but I loved that the author let us love Ash, too, flaws and all.