I have experienced losing both my parents and found that to be really traumatic. I can't imagine what losing a spouse would be like. Especially losing one so young and leaving you with children to raise alone. This book was heart wrenching and really explored all you would go through in losing your spouse, adjusting to raising children alone and just getting all with your own life.

After Annie by Anna Quindlen grabs our hearts in the first pages of her book. When Annie dies suddenly in her kitchen, she leaves behind her husband, four young children, and her best friend Annemarie. This story will resonate with any reader who has suffered the loss of a friend or a family member. This story brings to life how different people grieve in different ways. But a message of hope prevails as her characters deal with love and loss in their own ways and in their own time. I highly recommend this book and thank NetGalley for providing me with an advance digital version of Anna Quindlen’s book.

This story mostly followed the best friend and the daughter, Ali age 13 that Annie left behind. It was hard to see Ali having to grow up so much and hard to see her best friend struggle so much without her. This whole book was raw and hard. There were some very heavy topics including addiction, sexual abuse, and death. My only complaint is that it was slow moving but I am not sure the characters would have felt as real and raw if it moved faster.

What I liked:

Grief – How to move through it not just push past it but really heal and grow
The honesty and emotion
The relationships and how they grow

As the youngest of four children and someone who lost her own mother, this book captured my whole heart. I was immediately pulled in and felt every emotion. Quindlan's writing is immersive and powerful.

A study in grief told from three perspectives: the husband, the eldest daughter and the best friend. This story totally encapsulates the human condition.

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her loved ones are left to pick up the pieces. Her husband, Bill, doesn’t do so well. He relies on his eldest daughter, Ali, to help take care of her younger siblings.

Ali deals with the awkward ways in which people respond to her in light of her mother’s death. She is wise beyond her years, remarkably astute and unafraid to ask for help.

Annemarie, the best friend, is an addict with sting opinions and many faults. Annie saved her from self destruction, and now she must find a way not to self destruct without her.

Through the journey of grief, each character grows and learns what they are capable of. They also realize how Annie made them better people.

The story is profound, raw and emotionally gripping. Worth a read for sure.

Thanks you to NetGalley and Random House for the gifted access to an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for this ARC. I LOVED this book! It was such a moving depiction of grief, acceptance, forgiveness and love. I cared very deeply for all the characters and even though it felt dark and sad at times, it was an uplifting story. That is not to say it had an unrealistic happy ending, not at all. But it had a very realistic ending of how one family copes with loss and finding a way to move on. I flew through this book and highly recommend it.

“After Annie” by Anna Quindlen was the novel that I needed to read.

Almost eight months ago, I suddenly lost one of my best friends. I wasn’t the spouse or child and I struggled with my grief. How do you move forward after losing someone who played such a big part of your life for so long?

Annemarie faces the same traumatic event when she loses her dearest friend, Annie. Annie is also mourned by her husband, Bill, and daughter, Ali, and the portrayal of each making their way through their grief is poignantly heart-breaking in its simplicity.

This is a big novel full of small, fragile moments. Quidlen’s writing is almost—if I wasn’t reading an electronic version of this book I would have been highlighting phrases and lines because of their eloquence. What makes this novel so exceptional is how the characters, while not especially remarkable, cope and persevere despite their ordinariness. You will grow attached to these characters quickly and be unable to stop thinking about them. This novel completely blew me away.

Five stars.

Thank you the Anna Quindlen, NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel.

I had never read a book by Anna Quindlen before - but I will now look at her backlist to find a few more titles to dive into. I enjoyed After Annie very much. We know that Annie dies - she dies on the first page. The rest of the book jumps between present and past (which admittedly sometimes was confusing to me) as we follow Annie's husband, children, best friend, and other side characters. This is a story of family connection, drama, growth, sacrifice, and love. I appreciated how very "real-life" everything was. What happened to Annie could happen to any of us at any time, and this book forces us to take a look at our relationships, expectations, and what we might written on our own headstones one day. Four stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Anna Quindlen's books always cover serious topics: domestic violence, caregiving, sisterhood, and love. In 'After Annie', she explores the effect that the sudden death of a beloved wife has on her husband and 4 children. Anna is less than 40 years old when she suddenly leaves her family in the middle of cooking dinner. This is a character study of Anna's husband, friend, and oldest child, Ali, and how they react and live on after that experience. It's a story of how doing the simple things together in life create a family, and how no grand gestures are needed to show love.
This goes into a lot of detail about their day to day life, Anna's influence on the family even after she's gone, and how they take her into their hearts thereafter. This is a slow moving, tender, sad, and beautifully written story that will make you feel grateful for the people in your life. It's a very realistic portrait of the grieving process over a one year period.

I generally enjoy Anna Quindlen's books. This one just didn't do it for me. This book was unrelentingly sad. However, there weren't any outstanding or particularly relatable characters to balance the depressing nature of the plot

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

A moving book about love - especially a mother's love. How taken for granted moms feel often - and then what happens when they are no longer around. Friends choices, husbands choices, kids.
I always enjoy Anna QUindlen's writing style - she makes you really feel like this could be anyone in my neighborhood.

I thought this novel was decent---nothing mind-blowing, but not bad either. It was sad. I typically enjoy sad stories. I'm drawn to dramas. But this one was a bit flat in its sadness, if that makes sense. Not much happens. It's a subtle story with subtle character developments, a realistic depiction of grief.

Side note: Did anyone else find it odd that two main characters are Annie and Annemarie and the author is Anna?

Book review of After Annie by Anna Quindlen

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @randomhouse

⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was a good book and it is heart breaking. It's all about loss, and love and how you come through your grief after losing the glue in your family.

Annie Brown was a wife, mother and friend and when she unexpectedly dies, everyone close to her is impacted in so many different ways.
The story is told from different points of view, her husband, her oldest child and her best friend.
Annie was the mother of four children and her husband, Bill is left to manage a household without her. He doesn't even know the first thing about getting everyone fed and off to school, let alone take care of the big stuff.
Her oldest daughter, Ali has to grow up way to early and way to fast once her mother is gone. As you go on the journey with Ali, your heart breaks for her, but you also know that she is one strong girl.
Annemarie, Annie's best friend, has her own struggles with addiction that Annie has helped her through, that try to rear their ugly head back up, as she copes with all the grief from losing her friend.
It's a great, poignant story about love, loss and grief and how each person copes differently with loss.
Go grab this one on March 12, 2024 when it's released! You won't be sorry you did, but grab your tissues!
#netgalley
#afterannie
#crazybooknerd
#bookstagram

This beautiful story is about love, loss, friendship, marriage, grief, and family. It begins with the shocking death of a young mother with a heartbroken husband and stunned children. The pages are filled with how the family copes and picks up the pieces. Anna Quindlen is one of my favorite authors, and she did not let me down with this sweet story.

After Annie will break your heart and then slowly heal it. Anna Quindlen’s compassionate and honest ode to loss is a beautiful book. I loved it. No spoilers, I’ll just say that each character became completely real to me, and that’s no easy feat. Well done!

After Annie is the emotional story of a wife, mother and friend lost in the prime of her life. Her sad story is told by those left behind in remembrances of times spent with her. Each feels her loss differently. As they process their grief over time, they are able to come to terms with living without her. Cathartic.

Anna Quindlen's ability to beautifully and skillfully martial relationships among families and friends has never waned, and I was happy to immerse myself in her latest book. Annie, a wife to Bill and mother of four dies suddenly before she reaches 40 of an aneurysm, leaving all those who looked to her for support or solace behind..

We follow Ali, her only daughter and the oldest child through the challenges of losing her mother. Bill, Annie's husband is bewildered and lost and quietly desperate. AnneMarie, Annie's bet friend whose life Annie saved from addiction, and who has always been envious of Annie's easy ability to get pregnant, suffers incalculably from the loss. Quindlen's superb ability to develop characters and their connections is as brilliant as ever. and keeps the book moving smoothly and powerfully.

Annie worked in a care home for the elderly, and it is evident early on that her support for and love of her "patients" is quietly forceful and never-ending. But lest one think Annie is simply a strong person, Quindlen digs deep into her sense of humor, adamantine soul, and her friendship for the needy which always perseveres.

I have read several of Quindlen's books, and each reaches into the depths of people's souls and motives, and this is no different. It's once again an examination of relationships and human frailties written with the clearest eye and understanding.

Thank you to Penguin Random House and Net Galley for the privilege of reading this book.

This is the story about what happens when the glue that holds everything together is gone. There's Bill, the husband, Annie and Bill's four children, there's AnneMarie, Annie's childhood friend, relatives, neighbors, and a whole nursing home full of people who loved Annie. It's the heartbreaking story of how all of them are forced to move forward in their lives without Annie. While the subject matter may not be for everyone, if that's not the case, this is a very well done story of mourning someone you loved and how you move forward without her presence in your life.

I guess i’m in the minority regarding my rating of After Annie. I almost didn’t finish it. I found the book dragged, about 1/3 of it was based on the first few days after Annie died. And too many Annes and Annies to keep track of, not to mention the author, as well! Yes, it was a sad story of a young mother who passed leaving a husband and four children behind. Her best friend was impacted severely by her passing, too. I just couldn’t get into the heart of the story and I’m usually a sucker for a sensitive-topic read.

Thank you for my digital ARC copy and to Penguin Random House.

After Annie is a story of loss; loss of a mother, a wife, a best friend, a daughter, a community member and an assistant in a nursing home. It's a sweet story of her four children and how the oldest and only daughter has to grow up too soon, and Annie's best friend who is also somewhat under the care of the daughter with her helplessness. How many people miss her, are lost without her, a husband who has no idea of what to do and not to do. So many connections. A sweet and beautiful story. Thank you #NetGalley#RandomHouse#AfterAnnie