After Annie by Anna Quindlen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“It had been almost two months and he still waited for her to walk in the back door every morning. That morning he had leaned over Ali’s bed, and when his daughter opened her eyes and he saw the look in them, he knew she did, too. They were all floating in some in-between where nothing seemed real and nothing seemed right. Waiting for the rest of life, whatever that was, a future that felt like a betrayal. He kept her phone charged.”
I started this novel months and months ago because I love Anna Quindlen and I knew it would be phenomenal. But it’s about what happens to a family when the mom dies. And it was so heartbreaking that I had to put it down. For months.
I picked it up and put it down many, many, many times because this year was hard enough on its own and I didn’t need to sit in more grief. I didn’t want to sit in more grief.
““Yep,” he said. Her “complicated” and his “yep” were first cousins, were two answers designed to keep the jack in the box, because who knew what might pop out, everyone has a whole universe of trouble inside and no one wants the world to know.”
Finally a few days ago I was ready to tackle it and I am so glad I did. I will say that I still think it’s very, very, very sad. The grief pours out of each page. It’s heavy and hard to read. Especially because it’s not “in your face” grief. It’s not wailing. It’s the quiet, subtle grief that’s so much more heart wrenching. It’s the little moments that will never be the same. It’s the ordinary losses that feel so acute.
“You know, one thing I like about Miss Cruz,” Ali said. “She never says that. It’s like she knows that time can pass, and things can get better, or things can get worse, or maybe they’ll just stay the same. People act like time will fix things so everything will be the same again, everything will be all right, but sometimes it’s the opposite. Ant can get harder and meaner until that’s the person he is, for all time.”
There’s so much sadness and grief in this story. But there’s also moments of joy and hope. As with life, mostly we tend to move on, mostly we’re resilient and we recover. People help us. Kindness helps us. And we pick up our pieces and we find a way to survive and if we’re lucky we also find a way back to joy.
What a beautiful story this was. As with all her stories, this will stay with me for a long time.
with gratitude to netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
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