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    Before Everything: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Before Everything: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Before Everything: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Before Everything: A Novel

    Written by Victoria Redel

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A group of lifetime friends gather together to confront life, love, and now mortality

    Before Everything is a celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls. They've faced everything together, from youthful sprees and scrapes to mid-life turning points. Now, as Anna, the group's trailblazer and brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they've always done-talk and laugh and help each other make choices and plans, this time in Anna's rural Massachusetts home. Helen, Anna's best friend and a celebrated painter, is about to remarry. The others face their own challenges-Caroline with her sister's mental health crisis; Molly with a teenage daughter's rebellion; Ming with her law practice-dilemmas with kids and work and love. Before Everything is as funny as it is bittersweet, as the friends revel in the hilarious mistakes they've seen each another through, the secrets kept, and adventures shared. But now all sense of time has shifted, and the pattern of their lives together takes on new meaning. The novel offers a brilliant, emotionally charged portrait, deftly conveying the sweep of time over everyday lives, and showing how even in difficult endings, gifts can unfold. Above all it is an ode to friendship, and to how one person shapes the journeys of those around her.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 27, 2017
    ISBN9781524778064
    Unavailable
    Before Everything: A Novel

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    Reviews for Before Everything

    3.5/5

    20 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a story about five old friends who are dealing with the oncoming loss of one of their group. It goes back and forth between present time and their linked pasts. I picked up this book yesterday atthe library and sat down to look at it and did read it through in one sitting. While I feel like the story is a 3 star read, the fact that I did read it straight through counts with me. I do love when that happens!Anna has been fighting cancer for many years and has made the decision to enter hospice. Her old friends, her "new" friends and family start gathering at her home to share their recollections, food and friendship with each other as well as Anna. While I'm glad that I read this book, it was hard not to think about the first book I read by Elizabeth Berg called Before I Sleep which was done a long time ago which I have never forgotten.
    • 4/5
      Difficult, beautiful... makes you want to be the type of friend who makes amazing close friends. It was poignant and timely, while being a timeless example of what women can mean to each other. Hardest and greatest part was how much it made me think of my own mother, her lifelong friends, and her ever-growing list of friends, students, and people she came in contact with who can never forget her.
    • 4/5
      3.5 They met in the school yard, the five young girls that would remain friends, having children together, staying in touch even when their lives went off in different directions. They helped each other through life's many problems and difficulties, but now they are confronted by something they can neither change nor solve. Annie has fought her cancer for years, treatments, medications, bone marrow transplants, remissions and hope renewed. Her cancer though has come back and she has decided enough is enough and has started home hospice.This is ultimately a book of friendship, friends who are there through thick and thin, new friends and old friends, friends who now arrive in force trying to change her mind, convince her to continue fighting her illness. We hear from each of them in turn, including the husband who though connected emotionally has been living separated from his wife but is now her principle caretaker. The tone is not maudlin, it is more melancholy as they each remember times Annie was integral to their lives, she is very loved.While I appreciated this I also found it unrealistic as none seemed to confront the hard truths, except maybe the husband. Only one time, when they take her on a field trip in her weakened condition to a wellness spa and see how bad her condition is by the look on the receptionists face do we see how bad off she really is, how blind to this they actually are. So a good story but one that I felt was missing some base reality, or maybe it is just my feeling and others readers won't feel the same. Read it and see.ARC from publisher.
    • 1/5
      This book was sort of blah for me. I was really surprised it hit me this way. This type of book is usually right in my wheelhouse. It started pretty depressing to begin with. Then the characters were completely disconnected to each other and the reader. I was shocked with the pettiness some of the characters showed. I mean...one of their best friends is dying and they are wondering why they are not liked by the other women in the group. Come on...what's important here! I did eventually bail on the book. I gave it a good ole college try. I made it through a quarter of the book before I decided it wasn't for me. I usually don't post bad reviews because the author works very hard to put a book out in the world. And this is just MY OPINION. I received this novel from Netgalley for a honest review.
    • 4/5
      Spoiler Alert: this is a sad book so have Kleenex close at hand when you read it! Before Everything is a book about a woman who is dying of cancer. As the book begins, Anna is in the last few days of her life. As she faces death, she looks back at the good and the bad in her life, worries about her family and her good friends and how they will cope with her loss. But it's also full of lighthearted moments as she reflects on her life and her best friends who have basically abandoned their lives to be at her side and keep her final days full of memories and love. So, yes, it's a sad book but there is an overall feeling of love and friendship and memories that transcend the sadness with the joy of a life well lived.Thanks to First to Read for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.