“This whole time I thought my real life hadn’t started yet. Turns out that was my life. I have six months or so to make that okay, somehow.”
Oh, this book. I was intrigued by the premise initially, but I loved this book so much more than I would have anticipated. We follow our three main characters – Iris (recently deceased), her boss Smith and her sister Jade – through a series of emails, text messages and blog posts. The format of this novel made it a very quick and easy read – I flew through the majority of this book in a matter of a few hours.
“We are not special. We do not survive death. We only think we are, and do.”
This is an amazing portrayal of grief, presented in snippets. Smith is grieving the loss of his friend and coworker. Jade is grieving the loss of her sister. And through Iris’ blog posts, we witness her grieving the loss of “what could have been.” It’s sad and it’s funny (like, laugh out loud funny). It’s cliche to say “I laughed, I cried,” but, truly…I laughed. I cried. There are a few notable side characters, like Carl (you’ll hate him, then you’ll kind of love him).
“‘We die as we lived,’ some guy wrote. But how did I live?”
Thank you Harper Books/Harper Perennial for sending me a finished paperback copy of this book!
Read with Aimee 