Together We Will Go takes on a group of strangers who get together for a road trip, the purpose is to end their lives. The story also includes friendship and learning to get to know others. It took me a bit to get into the story, so happy I did. Thank you #NetGalley#GalleryScoutPress#TogetherWeWillGo

2.75/5⭐️

This book was hard in several ways.

First, Trigger Warning: the book deals with a group of people (12) who are solicited by an online ad to join a cross-country bus ride which promises to end in a collective suicide. Along the journey and for the price of the ride, they must upload journal entries relating their stories.
Second, I didn’t agree with a lot of the political ideals/posturing of the story, and the language (at least to me) was a bit much.
Third, as the author is a successful screenwriter for movies and TV, this felt too much like a movie script to me (in instances I was reminded of The Breakfast Club and Thelma and Louise). And I wouldn’t be surprised to see this show up on a movie screen. I think it would be catnip for Hollywood.

So while it really wasn’t for me, it did have some thoughtful and often poignant moments as this group of strangers became sharers of secrets and souls. Some will get more out of this than I did, but just be aware that it’s not all light-hearted material (as the book cover suggests). Read with care.

My thanks to #NetGalley and #GalleryBooks for providing me the free early arc for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

First and foremost, as you can tell from the synopsis, this is an unfiltered view of suicide and assisted suicide so I can't recommend this book to everyone. 

I took a lot away from reading this book. I loved the way the characters on the bus were extremely unique in appearance, circumstance and past trauma. The trigger warnings are robust, as each character was experiencing something from bi-polar disorder to chronic pain. 

Despite their differences, the characters all found a way to come together and love each other as a flawed group. Watching how quickly they found love together was so touching. It was a great reminder for me.

I really enjoyed the writing style. Told through a series of blog posts by each character, it was easy to follow despite the long cast list. I can't give away much here, but the writing style was extremely important to the plot and twist, which I found very creative. 

I laughed and cried multiple times reading this book. I enjoyed the ride with the group as we found small, beautiful moments along the way.

Together We Will Go tackles a tough subject with both empathy and humor. A group of people planning on committing suicide doesn’t sound fun but this group managed to find fun and love along the way. You learn the many reasons people believe suicide is their only option. While you may not agree with these guys, you cannot help but root for them. This book gives you a lot to think about.

Marc Antonelli age 29 is a writer and is depressed as he just got and stacks of rejections from publishers. He places a personal ad reads ~
Looking for “like minded” people who want to take a
cross-county trip and are willing to fly off a
San Francisco cliff”.
Hmm this doesn’t sound like my typical read, however, the saying “Life is a Journey ~ not a destination” had me curious.
Although this subject isn’t a read I enjoy, I do like when author tackle tough topics that they offer a resource. I was pleased to find at the end of the book that since book dealt with suicidal ideation and depression offered a hot line to speak to someone who understand.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273 8255

Want to thank NetGalley and Gallery Books for this early release granted to me for my honest professional opinion.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for July 6, 2021

What a great group of characters! Yes, this is a bit of a "road trip" novel, but it's also a character study. Almost a dozen people answer a personal ad to get on a bus, take a cross country road trip, and kill themselves upon arrival in San Francisco. The only catch? They must journal their experience and upload it to a shared cloud. The group becomes a family as they travel across the country, bonding in different ways.

Some characters you get to know more than others, but every one of them jumps off the page at different points in the story. This book was gut-wrenching and heart-warming at the same time.

"Mark Antonelli, a failed young writer looking down the barrel at thirty, is planning a cross-country road trip. He buys a beat-up old tour bus. He hires a young army vet to drive it. He puts out an ad for others to join him along the way. But this will be a road trip like no other: His passengers are all fellow disheartened souls who have decided that this will be their final journey—upon arrival in San Francisco, they will find a cliff with an amazing view of the ocean at sunset, hit the gas, and drive out of this world.

The unlikely companions include a young woman with a chronic pain sensory disorder and another who was relentlessly bullied at school for her size; a bipolar, party-loving neo-hippie; a gentle coder with a literal hole in his heart and blue skin; and a poet dreaming of a better world beyond this one. We get to know them through access to their texts, emails, voicemails, and the daily journal entries they write as the price of admission for this trip.

By turns tragic, funny, quirky, charming, and deeply moving, Together We Will Go explores the decisions that brings these characters together, and the relationships that grow between them, with some discovering love and affection for the first time. But as they cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this is a novel as much about the will to live as the choice to end it. The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime."

Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Failed writer Marc is fed up. He buys an old bus, hires an army vet as a driver and takes off on a road trip. Along the way he picked up many other companions, all getting on the bus with the same intent: to have fun and then drive off a cliff.

Wow, this was such a unique and heartfelt read. It left me with some complicated thoughts on suicide and assisted suicide. I wasn’t sure from the description if this was something I’d like. I don’t usually love stories that are made of texts, voice memos, etc., but it totally worked here. It still read as a full, connected story but we got everyone’s perspective and viewpoint through many means. There are many characters but they were easy to remember as we really were able to dive deep with all of them. Reading this story, you never know how it will end. Will any of the twelve get off the bus? Some? All? Read and find out... it’s definitely worth picking up.

“Why stick around when you’re not wanted, your future isn’t what you thought it was going to be and every day you’re being elbowed a little further off the planet?”

“There’s something nice about being one more rider on a bus that’s taking us all to the same place.”

Together We Will Go comes out 7/6.

There are certain kinds of books that I feel are written to make people cry. Tuesdays with Morrie, The Art of Racing the Rain....and now, Together We Will Go.

This isn't a lighthearted story. This is a story of people, meeting and traveling to the LITERAL end of the line. There are layers of emotional tragedy to each person's reason for wanting to die, and you'll cry at every one of them.

This isn't. a beach read. This is a lay in your bed and cry cry and cry.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Together We Will Go
By J. Michael Straczynski

I must preface this review by saying that I did not finish the book – not because I did not like it. The proof downloaded kept cutting out and going back to page one, making it hard to read. This is unfortunate, since this book is probably one of the best I have read in quite a while.

The story involves a cast of characters, all of whom, for various reasons, have decided to commit suicide. The characters agree to sign on for a cross-country bus trip which will end with a drive off a cliff in California. What a downer, you say? Well that turns out not to be true!

There are parts of the book that are crazy and parts that are funny. As each character writes entries into the community database (a requirement to join the bus), the reader realizes there are many reasons for choosing to end one's life. The entries serve as multiple narrators in the saga, which makes the whole concept more interesting.

I would recommend this book to any reader who enjoys the quirky and different. I hope to be able to read the full book – and look forward to what Mr. Straczynski comes up with next!

Many thanks to NetGalley, Gallery/Scout, and J. Michael Straczynski for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

**This book is not for everyone.**
It is written about a very serious topic (suicide) and is very different than my normal choice of reading.
However, it is brilliant! Don't ever judge a book by it's cover!

Here is a novel that brings twelve strangers together on a cross country road trip with the final destination to end their life. The book opens with Mark, an aspiring writer who hasn't gotten his big break. Mark purchases an old bus. He hires ex-soldier, Dylan to drive him and the passengers to their final destination with the intent of driving off of a cliff in San Francisco. Mark then runs an Ad looking for passengers who want to end their life. Upon being interviewed as a potential passenger, Mark puts stipulations in place - They must be serious about ending their life, sign an agreement relinquishing any rights to their stories and dictate a description of their their reasons for ending their life once onboard the bus.
This large and peculiar crew slowly grows as the trip continues, and their wild adventures together are documented through texts and audio recordings throughout the book. As the characters begin to bond, the shared goal is just the beginning of their connection.

This is a thought-provoking, character-driven book. Each character/passenger opens their soul, exposes their life circumstances and their many thoughts regarding the reasoning for wanting their own life to end. I felt myself heavily invested in what would happen to each and every one of them.

As the trip nears the end and shocking information is revealed, will any of these characters remain to tell the tale...or will the dictated recordings be the only documentation in the lives of this unique and meaningful journey?

This is a touching story that entwines twelve strangers on a road trip into humanity.
It's a glimmer of hope, love, laughter, betrayal and death ... exposed through the journey we call life.

This book is unique, at least I've never read anything similar. I found it fascinating, charming, sad, and enlightening. The characters are quirky and interesting. No matter how you feel about the right to choose to take your own life, it will at least open your eyes to what some of the motivations might be.

Mark, a struggling author at almost 30 years old, is suffering from chronic depression. He keeps submitting works and gets rejected all the time. He decides to organize a trip: he rents a bus, hires a driver, takes out an ad for other people to join him on a journey like no other. This is a one-way trip - when they arrive in San Francisco they will find a cliff with a view of the ocean at sunset, and drive off the cliff. The passengers are required to write journal entries, voice entries, texts and emails as the price of their trip.

The author provided insight into a tough subject with sensitivity and a good sense of humor. The characters are memorable. The story is told by all the people on the bus.

Thanks to Gallery Books through Netgalley for an advance copy.

The storyline was so unusual that I had to give this a go. I was caught up from the beginning. Much black humor and subject is something most people would not want to read about. I feel the author did a great job.

"“The reason they’re morons is they spend years, decades, hell, their whole lives regretting or apologizing for things nobody else even remembers. They carry those things around like bags of sand that keep them from going to all the places they could’ve gone and would’ve gone if they hadn’t been so busy thinking about the goddamn sand."

This is a unique book. The blurb mentions "Silver Linings Playbook" and "The Breakfast Club" and in fairness, I do see elements of both of them though thinking about either of them too much might take away from enjoying this book itself. I read the whole book in a single sitting. I loved the way it was diary entries mixed with dialogue and narration.

"Soldier didn’t need to show me all the time that he loved me. He knew it and I knew it and that’s that. What he was doing was giving me a safe place to put my own love. It’s like he was saying, I’m never going to leave you. I’ll wait for you. I want you to know that I’ll always wait for you, that it’s safe to love me, that you have a place to put all the feelings you can’t give to anybody else because it’s too dangerous, because you’re worried they won’t understand, and they won’t wait for you. I’m here. I love you. And I will wait for you. I’m not going anywhere."

I loved each of the characters and I loved their unique perspective of life and why they had decided to be where they were and what they were grappling with. I loved that most of them seemed real to me and I loved how they were thrown together and the one thing they had in common was enough to bind them.

"And if you’re wondering why no always trumps yes, it’s because when you’re married it takes two to say yes but only one to say no. Besides, there’s no risk in saying no. No means everything stays the same, you’re in control, and you don’t feel like you’ve lost out on anything."

This is a great story with some profound insight about life, how painful it can be and what it means to respect each others' choices and what it means to love each other (and ourselves) just the way we are, with pain and all.

with gratitude to netgalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

The last line of the Amazon description of this book says "The final, unforgettable moments as they hurtle toward the decisions awaiting them will be remembered for a lifetime" and I couldn't agree more. This will definitely be a book I will remember for a long time. I would never have imagined that reading a book about suicide, people's reasons for planning it, and people's reasons for not going through with it, would be interesting. This book was heart-wrenching, funny, sad, shocking and definitely interesting enough to hold my attention. In fact I read it in one day. I would highly recommend this book but if you do, buckle up and be prepared for a wild ride (no pun intended).

I didn't know how to feel about this book while I was reading it, but I liked it more after I finished and really thought about it. A group of people who are ready to take their own lives take a road trip together, just like Thelma and Louise, to commit suicide. What is a really heavy topic is treated in an incredibly human way, and I grew to really root for some of these characters. Whether I was rooting for them to continue living or to fulfill their truest wish, I have no idea. But in a world where so many books are so similar to so many others, this one will always stand out as being truly original.

Ok I must tell you all this book is deep....without giving anything away but wanting to give disclaimer this book is about a bunch of people who want to die. Now with saying that J. Micheal also details the fun times these people want to have before they die. The story is told by each person telling their journey that lead them to wanting to die. I wasn't a super fan of the constant talk of suicide. I enjoyed more of the group living their trip and trying to enjoy life while the can.

I thought this book was a bit of a downer but well written. This is my first time reading this author and I would gladly read more in the future if it is as good as this. Overall, I enjoyed it and recommend it.

Thanks to Netgalley, J Michael Stracynski and Gallery Books Scout Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 7/6/21

I lost my mother to suicide in 1984 and the school district where I work lost an administrator to suicide a year ago, so the topic interested me.
While I do appreciate the balance of the seriousness of suicidality and brevity of the realities of life, the narrative style was just not for me.

This book could’ve been depressing, but it really wasn’t. I really liked the characters and found them compelling. The writing was very good and the subject matter was unlike anything I’ve ever read before. I think this book will stay with me for a long time.

A very unique novel, to say the least! Together We Will Go is about a dozen people who want to die but who would like to have fun before the end. So, they sign up for a trip on a bus headed to California, with their ultimate goal being driving over a cliff off the coast of California. Each of these riders journals his or her view of life, the trip as it progresses, and reasons for wanting to end it all. Their story is told through emails, voicemail, texts, etc. as well as first- and third-person narratives. This combination of narration, although a bit disconcerting at first, worked better and better as the novel progressed.

Although I enjoyed this novel, and found each character’s individual story very engaging, the constant talk of suicide — so much so — was somewhat off-putting to me. Yet, the bits and pieces of humor injected every now and again made up a bit for that. The novel was also hard for me to get into. I was at least a quarter into it before things started to gel for me.

All in all, this was a different and interesting read.