We All Want Impossible Things: The uplifting and moving Richard and Judy Book Club pick

i think ist’s the writing, i don‘t know, i just didn‘t feel it

This was my first Catherine Newman book, and I fell in love with her instantly. The prose is so beautiful, heartbreaking, and real. I really liked the raw feeling of her writing, and I almost cried in every single chapter. "All of it's in his bones. It's the actual stuff of his body and brain. The placenta you made from scratch. Your milk from nursing him. All those pancakes and school-lunch sandwiches, all of that food and care." [...] "Everything you've ever fed him," I say. "His whole self is made completely out of your love." - page 27 I would consider this book literary fiction. So if you are here for a good plot, you better leave immediately. If you love a good cry, prose, a slow pace, and complicated characters ... this book is for you! Surprisingly, this book isn't really about Edi, the woman who was diagnosed with cancer. It's about Ash, her best friend. I know that a lot of readers call Ash self-absorbed and a character that is so unloveable that they couldn't read the book. But for some reason, I loved Ash, and I love the fact that she is far from perfect. If I have to read one more book about cancer, where everybody is an angle and death is like a bright light wrapped in white silk and garnished with people who are respectfully grieving while staying perfect and thinking positive ... I might barf. That's why I love "We all want impossible things" so much. It is ugly. And grieving can be ugly. Ash is such an interesting character to read about! She has so many flaws. Loads of them. But I felt so deeply for her. I could feel her pain while reading, and I loved hearing her impulsive thoughts about the death of her friend and her own life. She's not a character you can easily love, but she is a protagonist you can easily understand if you have lost someone. This feeling of helplessness that makes you want to burn the whole world down or just disappear from this world... that's what this book is about for me. But "We all want impossible things" has also a lot of happy moments in the pain of grieving. Stories about when to hold on and when to let go. Chapters that show you the ugly side of grief but also the things you can get when you work through this massive pile of emotions.