This author is quickly turning into one of my favorites. I enjoy his writing so much, and I always learn something from it. Plus, they’re fun!

This is my first Rowley book and wow! I love the depth of the story and these characters. I can’t wait to go read more from him!

This novel celebrates a deep friendship that endures through love and loss to support and lift each other up when lives fall apart. Told from multiple perspectives and spanning decades, the story unfolds allowing readers to get to know and appreciate each of the characters and the importance of their friendship over time.
The five friends in The Celebrants experience loss and are forever changed, but they lean on each other for courage and support and remind each other of what a gift it is to be alive.

Pass the tissues please because I’m a mess.
Steven Rowley has this way of writing characters that brings them to life for me. I pictured every character in this book so vividly as I read it. I felt their emotions and their life struggles.
I loved the back and forth of timelines. This concept of calling the group to have them gather for the pact, it was really sweet. It made me long for forever friendships like that. I also found this book so relatable because of the ages of the characters. I enjoy young adult books but as I get older, I find enjoyment in a book that I can relate to the characters and their current life struggles.
A bit triggering at times as the plot does contain a cancer diagnosis.
All in all, this book was so genuine and I just loved it. I feel like maybe it’s not a 5 star because I didn’t love it as much as The Guncle, but I also can’t seem to find any reason to not give it 5 stars. So there you go. 😊

Trigger warnings: cancer, death, talks of overdose, death of a parent

I just finished this book and it is beautifully written, tackles tough subjects with grace and reminds you to embrace the life you’re given and to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you.

I absolutely loved the Guncle (the first book I read by Rowley) and although I didn’t like this one as much, I still thought it was good! The chapters were a bit long and I would have liked a longer ending instead.

This book is deep so make sure you check out the synopsis and content warnings if you’re interested in reading it.

This is such a beautiful, funny, emotional, and special book. It has strong themes of connection, friendship and self-acceptance throughout. The flow of the story is done very well as it weaves through each person's life and their story. We don’t see a lot of the background of their relationships and I think a bit more would have helped me connect with the story better but that’s only a tiny criticism. This book had me laughing out loud, crying and fully immersed in every page.

Steven Rowley in undoubtedly and incredible writer, and the characters were very interesting and their stories were engaging. However, I had problems with the pacing, especially at the beginning. I felt that some elements were unnecssarily drawn out. I also took issue with what I felt was preachiness. While the themes were wonderful, they were outright stated instead of shown, and I think that the they could have been easy to pick up on without the obvious statements. I overall enjoyed reading Rowley's writing and getting to know these characters!

Thank you to Netgalley and GP Putnam's and Sons for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Celebrants was another poignant novel of friendship from Rowley. He does heartfelt, realistic fiction so well. I love how he manages to give us wholly developed characters with depth. I felt like I knew these friends like they were my own. I think this novel somewhat lacked a powerfully driven plot. Occasionally it feel like a mere glimpse of peoples lives rather than a full story arc. I also missed the sweet humor of Guncle. Sometimes the humor in The Celebrants felt a little lost. Overall, I love Steven's work and I will continue to read and promote him because we are all a little better off after knowing his characters.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5145254919I'm not sure if it's me or a new trend but for the umpteenth time this year I find myself thinking: "This book did not need to be this long". Yes, I know it's not that long, but it could have been much shorter and that's my point.

The premise of this book is great. After the suicide of one member of their group, four friends from college decide to make a pact: whenever one of them will be at a low point in life and in need of support, the others will gather and throw them a fake funeral to celebrate them and tell them how important they are and that things will turn out well.
The story begins when Jordan gathers his friends for his fake funeral, but the others don't know that his cancer is back and this funeral is meant to be his goodbye. So we alternate between the present storyline and (way too long) chapters showing the others' fake funerals, why they happened and how they went.

Again, great concept but I wasn't quite convinced by the execution.
Yes, I loved seeing how the friendship was born, how they were affected by their friends' suicide and what led each friend to ask the others to gather for a fake funeral but the fake funeral's chapters felt way too long, not only because the author had to introduce the friend who'd be the protagonist of that chapter but also because he had to catch us up on their life enough to make the reader understand why they had asked for the fake funeral. And, if that wasn't enough, there were so many other details and conversations and events (like the mushrooms one 0n the ferry, that was so useless) that had and served no purpose and only made those chapters drag even more.

And contrary to what happened with The Guncle, apart from Jordan and his husband Jordy, I couldn't really connect much to the other characters. So, even if I enjoyed the bickering, I wasn't attached to them enough to care for their life struggles.

Steven Rowley is great at creating "drama" and balancing lightheartedness and seriousness in a way that feels just right - and he's also great at narrating his own books, but I enjoyed The Guncle much more than this.

Steven Rowley has a way of writing characters that become so beloved and stories that are funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

The Celebrants is the story of five people who met at college that get together any time anyone has a very hard time called “funerals” which brings everyone together to celebrate the person they are having the funeral for to remind themselves that life is worth living. As with all friends and found families, there are secrets and things that come out through these funerals but these friends are there for it. What started because of the death of a friend helps this group through divorces and the death of parents, criminal activity and other major life occurrences. This is a beautiful story of friendship and family.

I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Celebrants
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Author: Steven Rowley

I requested a digital advanced readers copy from NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons and providing my opinion voluntarily and unbiased.

Synopsis: 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.

My Thoughts: Rowley has this way with his storytelling ability, to bring about emotions and even buried feelings from the past, within yourself. When reading Rowley’s books, you will laugh, cry, smile, and zone out of everything else but the words in front of you. Rowley recreates “The Big Chill” and modernizes the classic. The story opens with the anniversary of a friendship spanning almost three decades and celebrating their college friend who passed way too soon.

The story is narrated over the last three decades, with each section being on a particular member of this friend group. This story has an eclectic group of characters. The Jordans, a very beautiful loving couple who are facing a life altering surprising fact; Marielle, who just went through a heart wrenching divorce; Craig, an enduring friend to all members of the group; and finally, Naomi, encapsulated in grief after her parent’s tragic death. Three decades of life have taken its toll on the group, as life tends to do. This story is about friendships, life on life’s terms, and how family is what make of it. The characters were fleshed out extremely well with depth, emotion, witty, and creatively designed. The author’s writing style was complex, beautiful, poignant, humorous, thought provoking, and absolutely engaging. The author’s ability to mimic real life with these characters creates a relatable environment that touches you to the core.

This story was very heartwarming and puts you on a rollercoaster of emotions. This story was a tribute to life long friends that are more like family than your blood, through the hardships, through the celebrations, and just through life. Through life, even the really hard times, it is so important to laugh and not take everything so seriously. I highly recommend picking up this book, or audiobook, today!

Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig and Marielle are college friends who made a pact twenty-eight years ago to throw each other living “funerals” whenever they need help remembering that life is worth living - even in their darkest moments. This reunion is different because Jordan has a secret that may end the pact.

I really enjoyed this. I loved the idea of celebrating your friends - and telling them how much they mean to you - before its too late. Steven Rowley has a way of writing sad things is the funniest ways. I loved each of the characters, and I loved their relationships with each other.

This book felt like a big hug. Rowley rights, my favorite characters. I’m binge watching Schitts creek right now and I feel like this has similar vibes in the sense that it just makes your heart happy and you giggle a little. I was such a fan of the Guncle and was over the moon when I got early copy of this.

Overall, this is such a must read for everyone you won’t regret it.

I was expecting to immediately be wrapped up in this book the way I was with the Guncle but I couldn't get into it at all. I won't blame the book entirely it could have been me I might not have been in the right place for it I don't know it just didn't even feel like the same author to me to be honest.

The Celebrants is a wonderful story full of jokes, full of banter, and full of heart. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry, guaranteed. I’d recommend it to anyone comfortable with the content warnings.

The Celebrants chronicles the post-college lives of 5 friends: Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle. Shortly before graduation, they promise to celebrate each other’s funerals while they’re still living to remind themselves that life is worth living and how much they mean to each other.

You’re probably thinking:
(a) This sounds maudlin. I know. But it’s executed in a much more celebratory fashion, hence The Celebrants and not The Mourners. (Fair warning, it’s still sad though!)
(b) The “college friend group reunites on vacation” trope is so played out. Again, I know. But the “living funerals” concept keeps the book feeling fresh. I saw someone say that it’s The Big Chill meets Four Weddings and A Funeral and that is SPOT. ON.

Frankly, it’s just such a well executed book that I can get past the morbid sentimentality and commonness of the trope. Here’s what worked well:
- The structure is really neat - there’s a chapter for each Celebrant, all leading up to a big event for Jordan.
- The characterization is fantastic - each character feels real and develops believably as the story goes along - EVEN the character who predeceases the story.
- I’m not really sure what to call this, but I felt like I was living life right alongside the characters. The story spends more time on the day-to-day lives of each character rather than on the big days, which feels so true to life.

Thank you to Netgalley, Putnam, and Steven Rowley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

A beautiful, funny, emotional story about a group of college friends who reconvene at challenging times in their lives to hold living funerals for one another -- taking a moment to remind someone that they are important and they are loved. I can say enough good things about this book. It's simply a wonderful reading experience.

The Celebrants was a book that I instantly fell in love with. The group of friends who go through an unspeakable tragedy together and make a pact to hold living funerals for each other in times of need - what an amazing storyline. I loved to see how the characters would drift apart only to come crashing back together for a funeral and rebuilding those bonds. I loved the idea of found family and having that family share what you mean to them in your darkest hour to help you stay strong. This book had me laughing and in tears but in the best way.

This group of friends felt real and authentic. Things happen in life that separate us and change relationships, and that’s ok. I don’t know if I would want to have a “funeral” before I died, but I do love the thought of letting the people you love know how you feel about them while we are still here. It didn’t live up to The Guncle for me, but I doubt many books ever will 💛

Steven Rowley is becoming one of my favorite authors. Every book I’ve read of his has invoked depth of emotion. While The Guncle may always be my favorite, The Celebrants felt like a book I didn’t know I needed at this juncture of my life.

I really, really wanted to love this book. I found myself putting it down or getting distracted every time I would start reading. I had trouble getting into the story and found keeping up with the different characters difficult. The plot is good and the overall message is great. This book will definitely appeal to some readers, but unfortunately, it just wasn't the book for me.