I couldn't bring myself to continue reading this book after the first three or so chapters. I started and stopped a couple of times but was underwhelmed with what I read. I had such high expectations because "The Guncle" was SO good.... but the beginning felt abysmal and that even if I kept reading, it wouldn't be the extraordinary read I was looking for. I was drawn to the setting and premise and even the promise of rich characters. I think it could have gotten there but this one just didn't hit me the same way. I hope to re-read at a later time and overall, will still recommend the author.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This story had an 80s John Hughes quality to it that was very endearing! It starts out with a group of 20 somethings that meet at college and form their own clique that follows them through a few decades of love, loss, success and death of one of their own. In losing Alec, they form a pact to come together again, no matter what, when someone is in dire straights. At which time, they will hold a funeral so that the person can realize how much they are loved and wanted while living. It is incredibly rare for a group of college friends to stand the test of time, so it was pretty special getting caught up in their lives and a moving tribute to lifelong friends. Hug yours tightly!

OMG!! This author is definitely a favorite since, "Lily & the Octopus." This man knows how to write and pull on every emotion of his readers from start to finish. This book is so relatable too. You feel strong emotions to all the characters and their struggles throughout the book. I do not want to spoil anything.

Recommended book and author! Lily and the Octopus is still my favorite.

Thanks to Netgalley, Steven Rowley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available

this was our #alltheradreads book club pick for september since i had loved the guncle and heard early rave reviews about this one, but i sadly didn't love most of it 😢 from the jump, it was hard for me that one of the main characters had the same name as my toxic ex (authors! don't make your men have j names!!!). the friend group at the core of this whole story also was hard for me because they genuinely didn't seem to really like each other? i genuinely didn't like any of them until the last 5o pages or so... it just seemed to drag on and feel pretty lackluster until the very, very end. the end did tug on my heartstrings and get me choked up, which almost made me give it another star, but truly, this was just a very, very okay read for me.

I loved the concept of this book!! The idea of making sure your loved ones know they are cherished and celebrated before they have passed on is truly heartwarming. I love Steven Rowley’s writing, but this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me. I had trouble connecting with the characters and the extremely long chapters were a challenge for me too. Regardless, I will read anything Stephen writes, and I look forward to his next novel.

Steven Rowley knows what he's doing and honestly I will read everything he writes. This book was touching and funny and emotional.

I'm sure you've seen a gajillion reviews for this one. I picked up this book after DNFing another book because I wanted a "sure fire win."

Wellllllllll.....I liked it. But it didn't quite live up to expectations. I liked The Guncle much better. I just kind of lost interest the last half of the book. That's about as insightful as I can be because I read it last month! So good, not great.

Read it with a specialty cocktail while playing a beach ambiance video on You Tube.

Five friends in college experience the pain of a friend passing way too young. When they go to his funeral they leave thinking, “was that a funeral for the same person we knew?” It seemed more a funeral for the child the parents thought they knew. So, the five friends decide to band together with a pact that no matter where they are in life they will throw each other living funerals when said friend requests one.

A living funeral celebrates that person’s life and will help them get through a hard time. Before this book starts they’ve celebrated Marielle when her marriage crumbled, Naomi after her parents died, and Craig when he had to go to prison for a while. Now Jordan and Jordy are looking to call another living funeral because a secret is about to brim over.

I really enjoyed this one and am looking forward to reading The Guncle finally. 😜 Also, I noticed Steven Rowley shared on his page the other day that he’s got another new book coming out soon, yay! Here’s to hoping its another fantastic read as well!

Steven Rowley is an #autobuyauthor for me - The Guncle is one of my all time favorites and while this one didn’t top that one for me, I still 11/10 absolutely adored this one and it’s quirky cast of characters and unusual premise. This one will have you calling your bestfriends and holding them extra close. So happy, sad, funny, and dark all simultaneously. This modern retelling of The Big Chill will capture your ❤️ entirely.

•

Nearly thirty years ago, a group of Berkeley grads and bestfriends’ lives were forever changed: they graduated college and moved onto adult lives with joys, sorrows, challenges, triumphs, and everything in between - but they also were forced to bury their larger than life friend, Alex, after a tragic overdose.

•

The experience led them to make a pact: they would in the worst moments of their life all get together - regardless of where they were in their lives - and hold a funeral for the person in need. In other words, they would ensure that the friends they loved most knew exactly how much they were loved and the impact they had on their friends’ lives while they were still living, as opposed to after they were already gone.

•

Jordy, Jordan, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle join together for one last time in Big Sur, California, for a final funeral, and as they look back on their own funerals and the worst and best times of their lives - and the people and moments that brought them back to life - they are forced to reckon with both the beauty and darkness of life, and the people, so very flawed and yet so very wonderful, who make it worth living.

•

A phenomenal #read.

•

📖 BOOK REVIEW

BOOK: The Celebrants
AUTHOR: Steven Rowley
FORMAT: eBook
GENRE: Literary Fiction
DID I CRY: i don’t think so but maybe
PUB DATE: 5/30/23
RATING: 8/10
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you so much @putnambooks for my #gifted advanced copy of #TheCelebrants out now!

MY THOUGHTS

After absolutely adoring THE GUNCLE, I was extremely excited to dive into this one! It definitely is a slow-burn, heavily character-driven story but I enjoyed it!

It took me a while to get into it (3 months lol) and I definitely think that took away from my feelings for the book overall, but once I got to 30-35%, I found myself thinking about it when i wasn’t reading it & feeling excited to pick it back up.

I really truly loved the concept of this book. It’s original & it’s powerful and I think for the plot alone id recommend it to anybody. The writing, as always, is full of rich detail helping create these intensely developed characters that we follow throughout the book.

What went awry for me was the amount of main characters, and how long it took for us to get to know them. They each get a section of the book and to not fully know some of the characters until their section (aka the last 80-90% of the book) caused me to feel that it was underdeveloped as a character-driven story. And because there was 6 of them, they all felt a little half-baked. I wish there were fewer so that we could know them and connect with them a little better.

All in all this book is really strong in its concepts & makes for a really great discussion. Happy to have chatted with my #LowMaintenanceBookClub girlies about it!

The concept of this was one was so great: it follows a group of friends that met in college who made a pact to celebrate their funerals while they are living after their friend dies prematurely. The story has the trademark humor and heart of Steven Rowley (author of one of my favorite books THE GUNCLE) but to be honest it fell flat for me 🥲

My main problem with this book is that I didn’t connect to any of the characters. I felt like I didn’t understand them or really care what happened to them 🫣 I don’t know if it’s because there were so many characters (but I usually don’t mind this) or the story itself. To be honest, the characters were hard to keep straight. Cute that the author thought that I could keep the Jordan and Jordy straight in my head 🙄

TL;DR: I had such high expectations from THE GUNCLE and this didn’t live up 🥲 still enjoyable and sweet though!

Steven Rowley writes big feels books and this one did not disappoint! I was both laughing and sobbing in the same moments. This book is about growing into middle age and how friendships change over the years. Loved this book and will continue to seek out his newest releases.

When I read The Guncle, I absolutely loved it. It was so funny and such a feelgood read, and it made me feel so invested. So I fully expected to feel the same with this book, and I was very surprised when I started reading it and it didn't make me feel a thing. The premisse sounded so good, but the story didn't feel structured well, and the writing felt so distant. Since it's about a friend group, I really wanted to care about these people, but I just felt nothing. Because of this, I decided to DNF.

6000/5 stars. I am literally crying after reading this. This is a novel of surprises (despite the obvious which readers know what I am taking about.) The premise of the book while simple in explanation is so much more in writing. Each character and their funeral brought so much to the plot and development of the book. I was on the edge of my seat on who was Mia's father, how skydiving will go, and how this tradition will continue once everyone has had their funeral eventually. Before I write anymore, I may need to expose a prejudice of mine of being similar to the main 5 characters a student at UC Berkeley myself. This gave me a deeper connection will the novel and I felt the heart of it more than the average reader. When their friend group was on the ground of their Berkeley suite, I automatically put me and my friends in the same floor. This coincidence was not on purpose. I was just as surprised as any reader when I heard the college, they had all meet all the beginning of their friendship. I have also recently been reading a lot of books about death, some good and some bad, and this went along with this theme perfectly of showing the growth, beauty, and narrative that can come from an assumed end of death. It is now on my all-time favorite books that I would recommend to anyone (except maybe hypochondriacs like my roommate.) You only live once. That was the truth of it. But if you do it right, and I feel that I have so far reading extraordinary books like this one, once is more than enough.

Five college friends make a lifelong pact to throw living funerals for each other when they need a reminder of how much their lives mean to those around them. "There were lessons to be drawn from...each of their funerals: to live in the present, to live for yourself, and that we were never as alone as we thought." The book spans 3 decades and gets better and better as the book goes on. I loved The Guncle and while this book doesn't have quite the same appeal, it definitely has good life takeaways. Tell the people in your life how much of a positive impact they've had. Tell them before it is too late...

Absolutely LOVED this book. I found the characters so relatable, and really appreciated a story that parallels the experiences of a lot of people. I think almost every adult can relate to at least one of the storylines. This made me both laugh and cry, and made me go back and read Rowley's previous book!

I was so eager to pick up the Celebrants after LOVING Steven Rowley's THE GUNCLE. No surprises here, but I adored this book. Steven Rowley's strengths are the characters he creates for these stories. THE CELEBRANTS was a beautifully emotional story that reminds readers to appreciate their loved ones and not take a single second for granted. This is definitely a character driven novel, but readers are going to fall in LOVE with these characters. Steven Rowley is absolutely an auto buy author for me!

I have love hate relationship with Steven Rowley (in a good way). I love his books. I love the way he can come up with these circumstances that lead into perfect stories. I love that he is giving me ideas to have "funerals" with my handful of friends, so I can listen to them talk about me (with all good and bad). but I hate that he is making things so dramatic and shamelessly crumbling my heart in his hands. (yes, I'm sticking my tongue out sir!)

Five college friends made a pact after death of their "sixth" one. They would hold a roast/intervention style funeral once for each during their lowest so they could come out to the other side as a new person and life would get better. It was a good slap in the face for each of them: good downer when they felt so entitled and untouchable, good upper when they were really at the rock bottom. Knowing they had "their people" around gave them will to push through. Whichever position they put themselves into, there were the other four to pull them out, shake them a bit, and scream at their faces.

I really want to know the story behind this book. How did he come up with this idea of "the pact"? Does he have one?! Although I'm sad that I don't have "4" ride or dies (which 30 something has 4 ride or die friends left?!), I would love to have this with 1 or 2 I have. With this book, Steven Rowley continues to be my auto-read. So you should read too.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

4/5 stars

this was SUCH a beautiful story and I often found myself outwardly reacting to it, smiling and laughing and tearing up. the story follows a group of college best friends bound together by love, loss, and a pact. when faced with a friends terminal diagnosis, the story traces back their friendship throughout time and throughout various fake funerals, a tradition started with the intention of reminding one another that life is worth living, despite the hard times.

I absolutely adored that it followed this group of friends over time and I loved their bickering and easy friendship and flow with one another. it feels sweet to view adults as people who were once young, and seeing this group of friends keep that spirit alive with one another made it even more special. the characters felt well developed and the story had a beautiful flow, with drama and turns that didn't feel too ridiculous at every corner. the characters are witty and fun and real in a way that made me feel like I was part of this friend group. I just love the idea of being reminded that there are people who love you and that this love should be spoken while everyone is still around <3

definitely recommend !! and pls tell your friends/family that you love them <3

The Guncle is one of my FAVORITE books, but this wasn't such a win for me. I had a very hard time connecting with the characters and feeling invested in them.