After Annie by Anna Quindlen

 

My thoughts

Can you believe this is my first Anna Quindlen book? I'm shocked. I'm beyond shocked. This book was SO GOOD. Sad yes. It made me shed lots of tears. It also made me laugh a few times and brought out some anger(Bill's mother). This book is a very emotional one for sure. But it's so good. 

Right in the middle of fixing and serving supper Annie had a terrible headache and fell to her sudden death. Right in front of her family. Little did they know that their lives would be so drastically changed. So irrevocably changed. Little did they know what was going to happen now. How a family can move ahead with such a loss. Four children without their mother. A husband without the love of his life. How would they make it through. 

With lots of love, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, understanding, and friendships, this family would get by. They would survive this horrendous loss. These children, Ali, the oldest at thirteen. Ant(Anthony), the next. They two smaller boys, Jamie and Benjy. They were all left without the mother who loved them more than anything. More than anyone could. Bill, her husband. He was going to face a life that he had never expected. Losing his best friend. The love of his life. The mother to his four children. What was he going to do. He did not give up. He was determined to keep things going.

You get to know a lot about Bill and Ali. And Annie's best friend Annemarie. She was a mess for sure. Her and Annie had always been inseparable. Always there for each other. Annie was her lifeline. Everyone loved Annie. Except Bill's mother who I truly hated. She was so critical. Had no feelings at all toward her own grandchildren. I don't think she even truly cared for her own son. She was just an awful woman. 

This was a good book. A very sad story but also very interesting. Seeing how this family managed after losing the part that always held them. Always made sure they all had everything they needed. Annie was just the kind of person everyone loved. 

The story talks about addiction and the loss of fetus's. It also touches on child molestation. It is a tough story in places but is written in a way that might possibly help. It's a love story and not just between a husband and wife but a best friend, a woman's children. People she helped. Annie was a good woman. Much loved. Much missed. But I also think she left enough of an impression behind that helped each character move on in life. Once they was able to stop grieving. Once they started looking to each other in life instead of pain.

Five huge stars and I so highly recommend this book. It's so good. So emotional. So touching.

About

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.

Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.