I absolutely loved The Guncle so my hopes were high for this book. I loved the unique premise but just couldn’t connect with any of the 5 main characters. The story seemed to drag on at point and was just really hard to get into.


Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the opportunity to read this ARC.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️From the publisher:
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

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My review:
I have now read all of Rowley’s books. In all of them the voice of the main character is loud and loving. This book centers on a group of friends from college but Jordan seems to be the real center. Each character has their strengths and their downfalls and like true college friends, their past is based on shared passion and liveliness. All of the characters are different and at times I teared up for each one and then got angry at each one. To me, that is the hallmark of good writing because I cared.

My one complaint is that for such a close and supportive group, they spent a lot of years between each funeral not communicating. I found that a little odd but I am always willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. I would have liked to know more about Craig and Mariella and all that was unsaid between them. But the evolution of Jordan and Jordy was lovely. Rowley writes real people with real feelings…sometimes good, sometimes altruistic, sometimes unreasonable, and always deep. And the reminder to tell people how you feel about them in this life on Earth is an important one.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️5 stars. I’m grateful to have gotten this ARC from NetGalley and GP Putnam’s Son in exchange for my review.

*standing ovation* Mr. Steven Rowley does it again. If you are looking for a book on processing grief then Rowley is your man, every single time. How he manages to make his readers confront the darkness of grief and death and loss but feel so hole by the end will forever mesmerize me.

The Celebrants is the most beautiful story of a group of found friends reuniting throughout their lives at their darkest moments. It's a story that shows the most meaningful of relationships can and will stand the test of time. It is proof that found family can (and usually is) more important than blood. It is an ode to the importance of platonic love in our lives. It's the story you need when you feel alone in the world to remind you that you are not. It's the reminder of the impact with make on one another and the necessity of sharing these words each other before it is too late.

I instantly fell in love with the characters in this book and felt like I was sitting with them in Big Sur hearing about their lives. The way Rowley makes you fall in love with each and every character in his works is truly brilliant. I was rooting for them, I was angry with them, I was grieving for them. The pacing is perfect, the story is enjoyable, and humor hits perfectly, and the feels are so so real. Read with a box of tissues.

Some favorite quotes:

"To think about life is to contemplate death - it's what makes living so valuable"
"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single one, and the life of that candle will not be shortened"
"Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow"

Highly highly recommend!!! Loved every minute of this book!

It took me a little while to really connect with this book which surprised me. The story was incredibly interesting and I love books with non linear timelines, but for some reason, I didn’t really feel it until about 60% of the way through. Marielle really frustrated me. She was such a brat during her chapter and I mean, I get it, she’d been through A LOT, but yeeeeesh. I found Craig to be really pretentious at times, but he grew on me towards the end. Naomi, I went back and forth on. There were some really great scenes (the skydiving and boat tour pages had me cackling) and I LOVED everything about the Jordans. They were so sweet and endearing. The overall message of telling people what they mean to you while they’re still here was really well done. The ending definitely made me tear up a bit. I do think a lot of readers will like this one and I ultimately did, but I was just expecting to LOVE it.
TW: suicide, drug use, death, illness


Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Putnam for the copy of this ARC.

A college friend group decides to have "living funerals" after one of their pack, Alec, passes away suddenly before graduation. In this pact, each member of the friend group can invoke the pact when they're feeling like they aren't in the best place in life and could need a little encouragement, at any time during their lives.

While this friend group is quite chaotic, this was a really heartwarming story about being there for your friends, even years later, the various versions of ourselves we are as we go through life, and celebrating life as it comes. I definitely cried at the end - darn you Jordan and Jordy! This is a book I'll be thinking about for awhile - how we can light the candle of others to keep them going when times are tough, and how we can't hold things too tightly because really, we just can't control the big things that life will throw at us.

Read if you like:
- Friend groups
- Heartwarming stories
- The idea of "living funerals"
- Themes that will stick with you for awhile

A delightful read about a pact made by friends to celebrate each other’s funerals while the person is alive. Thought-provoking, happy, sad, and sometimes silly, this book is a heart-warmer in many ways.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I really enjoyed The Guncle, so was excited to read a new book by the same author. Steven Rowley has a special knack for writing with humor and heart, and I enjoyed The Celebrants just as much as The Guncle. A group of lifelong friends created a pact when they were in college to reunite when one of them is at a low point in life, to celebrate that person and remind them how much they are loved. Despite going their separate ways after college and living very different lives, they still come together when one of them needs it. Rowley writes a cute story that has depth and poignancy - he will make you recognize yourself in the characters, make you laugh, and make you cry, and make you laugh some more. I recommend!

The thing about Steven Rowley’s books is how different they are except for the basics: people need people. This clever new “big chill” was so full of surprises—the type that college friendships bring—and yet also the emotional depth I’ve come to expect.

5 college friends, since they buried one, Alec, far too soon after graduation. And a pac they make—a pac to have a funeral for each other before it’s time, when they need it. One would think that this could get formulaic, except for the power of Rowley’s imagination and writing. I cannot even…😂🙌.

Endearing, exasperating, sweet, salty-1these people each have so much to offer, so much to teach, so much to do, so much to say. And them it gets even more real. Loved it.

Thank you for the arc in exchange for an honest opinion. I just need the audio now…

This is a lovely story about friendship, found family, grief, starting over, and the importance of telling the people you love how much you care about them (while they're still around to hear it). I don't really know what I was expecting when I started reading "The Celebrants," but I wasn't prepared for just how much I would fall in love with each of these characters (flaws and all!), and how invested I would be in seeing them get through the challenges of living meaningful and authentic lives from young-adulthood through middle-age. I don't know if it's also because I just turned 40 a few weeks ago (haha), but this story resonated with me in so many ways. I was invested in their journey from page one.

For me, this book includes everything I'm looking for in contemporary fiction: authentic adult friendships, found family (flaws and all), grief (but also hopefulness), humor, flashbacks to earlier times (I love the pop culture references of the '90s and early '00s, and I'm HERE for the Courtney scale!), and a big kick-in-the-pants message for the reader. I left this book thinking deeply about several of my closest friendships and feeling wistful that I haven't been better at maintaining some of my lifelong friendships.

In short, "The Celebrants" is a beautiful story about coming to terms with your life, your choices (the good and the bad), and the unrelenting passage of time. Change is inevitable, and it can (and should) be celebrated. Through the lens of humor (and a good dash of sarcasm!), Steven Rowley has done something magical and brilliant with what otherwise might have been a very dark story. This book reminds us that it's never too late to start over or take a chance and make a change in our lives (after all, we only have one!) - - - and remember to appreciate, love, and celebrate those who share our journey.

I loved the Guncle and had very high hopes for The Celebrants. I loved the Jordans but even with the nickname Jordy it was hard at the beginning to keep track of who was who. The storyline does feel a little disjointed and does jump all over the place. I think I needed more of the characters stories from when they were in college. I needed more Alec to then really understand what the characters were experiencing. It was a quick read and had some cute moments but I needed more from the characters. I wanted to know more about the Jordan’s life together. This will be a cute and quick summer read but it falls short of expectations.

I loved The Guncle so I requested The Celebrants as soon as I saw it on NetGalley. Thank you for this advance ebook. I enjoyed reading about the development of their friendships over a span of 30+ years. At times, I felt the book was a little disjointed for me, the jumps in years between living funerals. I wanted to get to know the characters more. I loved how no matter what was happening in their lives, they showed up for each other when they needed to. I wish I had a group of friends that special, I felt that the ending was a little
abrupt. I was expecting it but I also felt like I wanted more.

While I was a HUGE fan of The Guncle by Steven Rowley, unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. I found the concept of having funerals for each other before death/when needed most to be an interesting concept, but better characters were needed. I did not really like any of the characters and found the relationships between each other to be lacking. I wanted there to be more of a connection to the chapter titles in the chapters themselves.

I thought there was too much build-up and not enough of a justifiable ending. Overall, I will probably read another one of Rowley's books, but it has a lot to live up to after this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Friends Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle made a pact in their 20s when their friend suddenly died. They vowed to give everyone a living funeral so that each person would know their worth in life before it was too late. This reunion is different because Jordan has a secret that will upend their pact and test the bond of their friendships. What a charming novel on friendships, celebrating life, and the journey of life.

TW: suicide

Thanks to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for a digital ARC in exchange for my review.

The Guncle is one of my favorite books, so I went into this with high expectations and really wanted to love it. However, despite the unique premise, I couldn’t connect to any of the five main characters and found it hard to buy into their friendship over the years. Still, it is a quick read with poignant writing and important themes of found family and figuring out life’s struggles. Just know going in there aren’t many funny and light moments!

Thank you Putnam for the Arc! Pub date 5/30

Steven Rowley has a way of making me laugh with tears in my eyes, of making relationships in books feel like relationships I have had or want to have, and making me want to hand out his books to everyone I know.

I loved The Celebrants, tinged with some melding of sad nostalgia vibes (very indeed Big Chill feels, one of my top movies of all times) and blended with the genuine love of friendship and the messiness that is adulthood. Rowley's writing is a big heartfelt hug.

Thank you #Netgalley for the advanced copy!

In this read we follow a group of college friends as they navigate adult hood while bound by pact. After one of their friends suddenly dies, they opt to each have the option to call a living funeral to allow for others to know why they are worth living. After many years, no one had triggered this pact until one friend experienced a life altering event pulling the friends back together. The book is then broken out into parts giving background on each friend and why they their funeral was initiated, each time uniting them even more. The the content was dark, this book still had funny moments and kept me engaged.

(4.5/5.0) The Celebrants by Steven Rowley was exactly the heartbreaker / heartwarmer I was looking for. It somehow walked the line between chosen family love and slow burn grief, tugging at my heart-strings along the way.

The story follows a group of adults who went to college together, promising long ago to stay connected through a funeral pact. Essentially, they promise to love out loud and not leave anything left unsaid, after attending a funeral where the person being honored missed out on the chance to hear all the wonderful tributes.

I’ll be up front and say that this probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially if you are comparing it to The Guncle. The writing flowed the same, with humor woven into hard moments, but the attachment to characters might be different. The character development is told mainly through flashbacks and you learn about their pasts, versus growing with them. You learn enough to understand the group’s bond, but you don’t sink into characters in depth.

For me, it didn’t detract from the story and I shed actual tears at the end (in public, no less). Chosen family is one of my very favorite storylines and the exploration of love, loss, and grief is my favorite kind of book cry.

This was a great fit for me, and I’d recommend it to anyone else who might want to spill a tear over a fictional character.

Content warnings: death, terminal illness, cancer, grief

A twist on a “Bucket List” story, this novel packed an emotional punch. Like “The Guncle”, it handled grief with humor and a reliance on the ones we love most. The group of friends had a unique relationship, but to me, they were more “trauma bonded” than truly close knit friends. There was a twist with 2 of the characters that I thought added a lot of interest, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward in its telling. It was a quick read, and one that reminded me to not wait until it’s too late to celebrate the people I love.

Even after almost thirty years after suddenly passing, Alec is still very much apart of a close group of college friends’ as they navigate big swings that life throws at them. The friend’s death sparks the group to celebrate their lives now while they are living.

I really liked the premise of THE CELEBRANTS but found myself having a hard time connecting to the characters while reading it. At times it felt a slower pace but that could be due to book being mostly about reflections and the past. I did appreciate and admire the ending. I am glad to see others are enjoying it even though it wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley for the ARC.

I thought the idea behind this book was clever. Having a funeral for someone while they are still leaving so that they know how loved they are? This is right up my alley.
However, I was really distracted by the fact that these five friends were pretty unbelievable as friends. It's the Seinfeld experience- these people are NOT nice to one another and it's hard to figure out why they are friends, much less how that friendship lasted so long.
The writing was sharp and on point. But if you are looking for a book similar to The Guncle, just know that this doesn't hit that level of warmth and light-heartedness.