My heart! I love books about grief and it's many forms, and this one is just fantastic. The titular Annie drops dead in the first few pages - an aneurysm, it turns out - leaving behind her devoted husband Bill and their four children (Ali, Ant, Benji and Jamie). What follows is a "year in the life" as this family (plus Annie's very best childhood friend Annemarie) struggle to put their lives back together with a giant missing piece.

What books about grief often get wrong is the vast difference between losing a spouse and losing a parent. I found this especially profound here, where Ali is the only daughter and being expected to fill in as a mother-type figure while her dad does eventually start to date. It's such a common refrain for oldest daughters in motherless homes (can you tell I am the oldest daughter who lost my own mother at a young age!!) and it plays out beautifully here.

I loved so much about this. Learning about Annie through her grieving loved ones is such a genius trick - we see Annie say but one line in the present day, but we get to know all about her as her husband, friend and children process her death. I liked the seasonal vibes of this one, fast forwarding a few months each time, but catching up quickly to our characters lives. I also loved the therapist character, who was able to work with Ali, Ant and Bill beautifully.

I don't know, what more is there to say? It's a slice of life, but a bittersweet one. There are a lot of very funny moments, truthfully, but by the end my heart was both broken and healed. Just as the Brown family probably feels.

5 stars, easily. I loved the read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Annie Brown is preparing dinner and suddenly drops to the floor, dead. Her husband and four young children are suddenly without the person who was at the center of their lives. Equally lost is Annemarie, Annie’s best friend.

Annie’s 13-year-old daughter works to hold everything together, while still dealing with her own issues.

This novel reminds us how well Anna Quindlen understands people, adversity, and change.

The journey of those left here after his wife, their mother, and her best friend, dies suddenly and leaves them struggling. One thing I found comforting is they discovered that she was still with them, with her voice in their head, guiding them through the grief, the moving forward, and the struggles. They learn that someone they loved so much, is never truly gone, because they live through you, with the memories, the wisdom, and they seem to still be there to guide you through this horrible time.
It was a hard story to read at times, but it was also a story that gives comfort, because losing someone is hard, but it does seem like they will always be with you, even after their death.
I received an ARC from Random House through NetGalley.

A real eye opener of a story. How do you survive the sudden death of a young wife and mother?

I felt deeply for Bill Brown. I fell in love with Annie, Annemarie, Ali, Ant, Benji, Jamie and even Tom. Each character became a person and their struggles brought them to life. The ending left me smiling with hope for their futures.
I wont say more in fear of spoiling the story.

Thank you Random House and Net Galley for the ARC.

A beautifully written story about a family and a best friend trying to move on with their grief. At first, I had a hard time keeping characters apart as all began with the letter A! It deals with each persons life and things they have been through or go through after losing Annie. The side
stories of a few characters were also interesting. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC

Oh my gosh, have you ever wondered how your family would manage if you died suddenly well before your time? This is the story of a family struggling after the death of their capable, beloved mother. The dad is lovably clueless but goodhearted, and the kids are sweet and real. Family dynamics are portrayed realistically, as always with Quindlen's superlative gift for story. An emotional, satisfying study of a family making it through a year of bereavement and growth.

I am a big fan of Anna Quindlen and have been following her writing for a very long time. She writes with heart and tackles difficult and timely issues.
After Annie is a heartbreaking story about a young mother, Annie, who passes away very suddenly, and the aftermath of the impact on her family and friends. It is mostly told from the viewpoint of her oldest child, Ali, an adolescent, and Annemarie, Annie’s closest friend. Quindlen is such an amazingly good writer, particularly of characters; her readers feel their pain and their joy.

This was a good read - I really enjoyed this book. I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it early and will definitely be recommending it to multiple people who enjoy these types of novels. I enjoyed the characters and especially enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what the author comes out with next as I'll definitely be reading it! Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book!

After Annie
By Anna Quindlen

I was drawn into this novel right away by the children who were left at home when their mother had to be taken away by ambulance. I was only seven when it happened to me, and my mother didn't die. Nevertheless, it affected me all my life. Anna Quindlen is such a good writer that, whatever happened next, I knew I was going to love her latest novel.

In After Annie, Quindlen does what she does best: describes our lives in a way we can recognize but in the end also learn from. A find of mine used to say, “She takes us up to the balcony so we can see what’s happening.” It’s really hard to see patterns when you're in the middle of them. But Quindlen does the work for us, and then lets us say, “Yes, I recognize that. It's how life works.”

You can't really have “happy” ending when the main character dies in the first chapter. But you can have a rich and satisfying one. Bill, Anne Marie, Kathy, Ali, Ant, Jamie and Benjy will all live on and Annie will not be forgotten because she lives in them. What Quindlen put on Annie’s grave sums it up: Annie, She was so loved.

Annie Brown dies right before dinner on the kitchen floor. This novel is the story of how this death affected three people: Bill, her husband, Ali, her 13 yr-old daughter, and Annemarie, her best friend. Their grieving is recorded over a year's time with their different ways of coping.
A compassionate, thoughtful story of how a personal death many change one's perspective on life. How what one does may affect other family members.
Highly recommend this novel.

After Annie is a devastating (and eventually hopeful) look at the lives of the friends and family of Annie, a 37 year old woman who suffers a sudden death. As a mother of a similar age, it was difficult for me to read about the family's reaction to her loss, as I imagined how my own family would react. But the book is a beautiful meditation on the impact we make on family and friends, both during and after our life on earth. I heartily recommend the book, but make sure you're in the frame of mind to handle a difficult topic.

I loved every page of this book. Yes, it broke my heart, but it also mended it. This is the story of the loved ones of Annie Brown, and how they continue to exist in the world the year after her passing. They are bereft and broken, but they are also illuminated and strengthened by the memories of Annie that each of them carry within. Grief is a messy, tricky animal and Anna Quindlen captures every nuance of grieving with beauty and tenderness—and humor. This is a beautiful character driven novel, and would be a good read alike for Commonwealth by Ann Patchett or Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane. I loved it.

It took me a bit to get in to this book, by one of my favorite authors but I was hooked by half way through and couldn’t put it down til I finished it! The story of a family reeling from the death of their mother told from the perspective of the daughter is absolutely amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.

Anna Quindlen's latest is insightful and desperately sad, basically about how a family falls apart after the mother (who wasn’t yet 40) suffers a brain aneurysm and drops dead in front of her husband and their four children while making dinner, and how they slowly, SLOWLY, begin to find their footing again. She doesn't leave you without hope, but this family—and Annie's best friend—have a tough, tough time without her.

Anna Quindlen! [What, of hers, haven't I read?!]

The setting: Annie Brown, thirty-seven [?] years old, dies suddenly [brain aneurysm, first chapter] leaving a grieving husband, four young children, and a BFF. Of love, loss, family, disgruntled relatives, addiction, and even child abuse [phew].

The childrens' struggles are real and vivid. Her husband is lost. Although Annie worked full time, not unexpected that she was the glue and did everything to keep the household together and functioning.

This is an easy read, peppered with humor although there's a lot of grief and sadness. Poignant and peppered with insight.

Some descriptions I quite liked:
"... he had shrugged, marital agreement without words"
"skin that was puckered and pleated from pregnancies"
"Almost everything she said sounded as thought it should have either italics or an exclamation point"
"Every once in a while you came across a lie that was like ground glass in your throat."

I thought this book is real! Thirteen-year-old Ali's struggles, sessions with a counselor, being a teen/mean girls. Annie's mother and sister. Bill's mother [disliked intensely]. His foray into dating [sort of].

And the backstory of Annie's friendship with Annemarie and the latter's addiction issues. Vivid.

Solid 4.

How great is Anna Quindlen? She has a way of creating characters that are relatable and thoughtful. AFTER ANNIE is about loss and growth as a family undergoes a profound loss. There's a lot in this one - everything from death to addiction to abuse. For me, the plot seemed muddled with too much. It would have been better with less chaos and more depth with a few story lines. It felt scattered and incomplete (probably because it tried to do so much). I'm glad I read it though - I'd read and will continue to read anything Anna Quindlen writes.

After Annie, by Anna Quindlen, is a heartbreaking story of a mother who drops dead, leaving behind her husband and young children to cope with their loss. The story is beautifully done and will tug at your heartstrings. While it was slow-paced and took a bit to get into, it fit the story and I enjoyed it. It does broach several topics that are known triggers for some.
Thanks, NetGalley and the publisher, for providing me with the ARC ebook I read and reviewed. All opinions are my own.

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC of After Annie by Anna Quindlen. The writing was exquisite and the story was emotional and heartfelt.

The book opens with Annie Brown, a loving wife and mother, collapsing on her kitchen floor, leaving her husband and four children. Through the characters, the reader gets a picture of how loving Annie was as a wife, mother and friend, while they deal with their grief.

"There was no way to know how to move on, which everyone insisted you should do, without leaving the person behind, so that the further you got into this new, different, strange, impossible existence, the fainter they got, like a ghost in a movie that at first had clear edges and a discernible face and then was a cloud, and then smoke and then nothing."

It has been awhile since a book moved me the way that this one did. If you are an Anna Quindlen fan, or even if your not, this book will no doubt give you all the feels.

Annie Brown collapses while making dinner, and immediately dies, leaving her husband, four children and best friend bereft and unsure of how to move on without her. Ali, her eldest daughter, only in middle school, becomes surrogate parent to her three brothers, while her father turns inward and throws himself into his plumbing business so that he can refrain from dealing with Annie's death. Ant, the oldest boy becomes angry and defiant, and the two younger boys cannot quite understand that their mother is gone and not coming back. Annemarie, Annie's best friend and alter ego, struggles mightily to keep from relapsing into the addiction that Annie had once saved her from.

This book is about grief and how it is not something that one cannot move on from; rather, that it is something that one learns to live with. The reader meets Annie as she is dying, but later comes to know her through the many stories told from the vantage points of her family members and Annemarie. She was a one of a kind mother, friend and more, and her death leaves a tremendous hole in the lives of all she left behind.

The prose in this book is gorgeous, and the character development is spectacular. Do not miss it when it releases on 2/27/24.


#netgalley

Very emotional and stirring story of a mother dying and her effect on her family
Lovely and thoughtful story. Quindlen aways seems to tug at your heartstrings