The Celebrants: A Read with Jenna Pick
Books | Fiction / Literary
3.5
Steven Rowley
New York Times BestsellerA TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club PickA Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises—especially to ourselves—by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle.It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley 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.A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.
Lgbtq+
Coming Of Age
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More Details:
Author
Steven Rowley
Pages
320
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2023-05-30
ISBN
0593540441 9780593540442
Community ReviewsSee all
"Excellent read. Heavy mental health talk. Thought it was brilliant. Makes us take a look at who we are and who we were and the people we keep along the way. "
T G
Theresa Grant
"Another incredible book by Steven Rowley. This one is even more beautiful because I know we’ve all had those moments where we are with our college friends and we experience a loss so hard that it makes us contemplate our own mortality. I’ve had those conversations because I have had those losses. I loved the Jordans’ dynamic where they first hooked up the same day as Alec’s death and how Jordy kept the real reason for Alec’s death a secret. When a loss like that hits you, you have to fight hard to get back up. And this book is about the immediate reaction to grief. A beautiful show of how friendship, whether you talk every day or you talk every few years, your people are your people. It’s such a beautiful message"