The newest addition to Emily Giffin’s series of novels about love, heartbreak, and happiness is a story about life and the complex nature we encounter when we lose someone we love too soon. Be ready to laugh, cry, and reflect on your own relationships and the beauty of finding love in the things we do and the people that surround us. I have been a reader of Emily Giffin’s novels for a couple of years and this one is very much the one about the struggles each one of us faces with family whether you’re single, married, divorced, with baby, with kids, with no kids.
In the beginning we meet siblings Daniel, Meredith and Josie who love and care for each other above everything else. Daniel being the eldest is the nucleus of the family, he is the parental pride and an aspiration for both of his sisters. As the story unravels we learn the complicated dynamics of their family during the aftermath of a tragic accident. An already rocky relationship between Meredith and Josie is truly on the point of no return once accounts of the tragic night are laid out. Rivalry, jealousy, secrets and lies all play a part in the way the sisters approach each other which has sadly drifted them apart. The decisions they each have made have solely been based on keeping up appearances and not losing face with one another and their family.
Reading this novel is a real experience because these are topics people deal with everyday. Reflect on the relationships in your life, the interaction and the communication you have with your parents, siblings, your friends and the people you date. It’s up to us to come forward and strengthen our relationships. There are so many examples of family in this novel because just like in real life family is not limited to those with which we share a name, a womb, or blood. The bond of family and the people that love us truly shapes and makes us who we are and who we hope to be because they are the family we will always belong to.
Lemmon Avenue 