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Litsyland and the #birthdayfairies are happy to be celebrating with two of our own today…HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you @Booksblanketsandahotbeverage and @MommyOfTwo !! 🥳🥳🥳

Wishing you both a day filled with sunshine, laughter and #birthdaylove and a year ahead blessed with good health and fun surprises. 💙💚

Erika and Amy…it‘s PARTY TIME!

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“The ability to adapt to loss, cope with death, and express grief is critical for healthy childhood development. All the Dear Little Animals can be used to introduce the topic of death and dying to children due to the structure of the text, engaging illustrations, and appropriate wording.“ Read the full review here: https://wowlit.org/on-line-publications/review/xvii-2/3/

Audio. I love Reynolds writing style. I just think I‘ve out grown his stories. They feel so specific to the teen years. Like this, a book about grief, while a great theme, is for teenagers bonding over tragedy in their lives. The ending points about the flower were beautiful.

This was a reread. The first time around was a so-so, but as an audiobook, it was much closer to a pick.

A group of college friends come back together to throw “funerals“ for each other in times of crises, so that they always know they're loved. An entertaining read that had many resonant passages for me, but it felt a little lacking in real depth somehow. Perhaps it's because we spend time in the minds of five different people and it's not that long a book. Or perhaps the echoes of “The Big Chill' and “Peter's Friends“ make it feel too theatrical.

“We've reached the tipping point,“ Naomi said, pouring a shot of Don Julio; it burned with a smoky finish.

“How do you mean?“ Jordy asked.

“I just figure at a certain point, life takes more from you than it gives.“

He had an urge to return to Bogota. It was fascinating to him, the idea that all the things his parents had escaped were now here, and all the things they wanted for their kids were now there. Random gun violence, political unrest, supply chain issues--those were now America, Marriage equality, socialized medicine, and reproductive choice--those were all Colombian.

Everyone was on the same ticking clock. They might fool themselves into thinking that more time affords them opportunities to do more things, that the future is open-ended. But the world is simply too big. We weren't meant to see everything, we weren't built to do everything, we aren't capable of knowing everything. At a certain point, peace has to be found with the choices we've made.

Read in 2024. The book is about a group of friends that have living funerals for each other after one of them from their friend group passes away. The story goes back & forth between their time in college to what they‘re current going through in life. They discuss their highs & lows of life. Nothing ground breaking but I enjoyed it (although months later I can‘t remember anything poignant about the story).

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for my December #Roll100 pick.

After the unexpected loss of their friend, five young adults make a pact to give one another “living funerals”. Over the course of 20ish years, the friends come together at various life stages to uphold their promise to one another.

This was moving, emotional, and struck a chord. Beautiful.