We All Want Impossible Things
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Description
'Gorgeously tender and so deeply loving' NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS, bestselling author of Fundamentally
'Nora-Ephron-style wit...comforting, so funny, moving... one of my favourite books ever' MARIAN KEYES
'Newman writes loss and laughter in equally brilliant amounts.' BONNIE GARMUS
'Dazzling, heart-wrenching, snorty-hilarious... An utter joy to read' RACHEL JOYCE
_______
Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self?
Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, REM concerts, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.'
So when Edi is diagnosed with cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from making watermelon ice cubes and music therapy to snack smuggling and impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night.
Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment and building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.
Deeply moving yet laugh-out-loud funny, We All Want Impossible Things is a jubilant celebration of life and friendship at its imperfect, radiant, and irreverent best.
To read more by CATHERINE NEWMAN, discover the NYT bestseller, SANDWICH, and her new novel WRECK: 'Beautiful, funny, wry, relatable and uplifting... I LOVE her work' Marian Keyes
_______
Praise for We All Want Impossible Things:
'A beautiful, candid and uplifting testament to female friendship that will make you laugh and cry' WOMAN & HOME
'This tale of love and friendship is a tender, funny, life-affirming joy' MARIE CLAIRE, 'Best Books of 2023'
'Devastatingly funny ... handled with compassion and courage in elegant prose lightened by honest humour' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A treat' THE SUNDAY TIMES
Remarkable ... A whip-smart, funny, beautifully observed and exquisitely characterised novel' OBSERVER
'Utterly life-affirming and joyful' RED
'One of the best novels on friendship I've ever read' AJ PEARCE
'An absolute masterpiece in characterisation... utterly beautiful.' JOANNA CANNON
Book Information
Posts
The prose is out of this world, I loved the slow pace and how the author left space for the ugly side of grief. This book isn't about a person dying from cancer, it's about someone who loses their best friend.
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.
Description
'Gorgeously tender and so deeply loving' NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS, bestselling author of Fundamentally
'Nora-Ephron-style wit...comforting, so funny, moving... one of my favourite books ever' MARIAN KEYES
'Newman writes loss and laughter in equally brilliant amounts.' BONNIE GARMUS
'Dazzling, heart-wrenching, snorty-hilarious... An utter joy to read' RACHEL JOYCE
_______
Who knows you better than your best friend? Who knows your secrets, your fears, your desires, your strange imperfect self?
Edi and Ash have been best friends for over forty years. Since childhood they have seen each other through life's milestones: stealing vodka from their parents, REM concerts, marriages, infertility, children. As Ash notes, 'Edi's memory is like the back-up hard drive for mine.'
So when Edi is diagnosed with cancer, Ash's world reshapes around the rhythms of Edi's care, from making watermelon ice cubes and music therapy to snack smuggling and impromptu excursions into the frozen winter night.
Because life is about squeezing the joy out of every moment and building a powerhouse of memories, about learning when to hold on, and when to let go.
Deeply moving yet laugh-out-loud funny, We All Want Impossible Things is a jubilant celebration of life and friendship at its imperfect, radiant, and irreverent best.
To read more by CATHERINE NEWMAN, discover the NYT bestseller, SANDWICH, and her new novel WRECK: 'Beautiful, funny, wry, relatable and uplifting... I LOVE her work' Marian Keyes
_______
Praise for We All Want Impossible Things:
'A beautiful, candid and uplifting testament to female friendship that will make you laugh and cry' WOMAN & HOME
'This tale of love and friendship is a tender, funny, life-affirming joy' MARIE CLAIRE, 'Best Books of 2023'
'Devastatingly funny ... handled with compassion and courage in elegant prose lightened by honest humour' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A treat' THE SUNDAY TIMES
Remarkable ... A whip-smart, funny, beautifully observed and exquisitely characterised novel' OBSERVER
'Utterly life-affirming and joyful' RED
'One of the best novels on friendship I've ever read' AJ PEARCE
'An absolute masterpiece in characterisation... utterly beautiful.' JOANNA CANNON
Book Information
Posts
The prose is out of this world, I loved the slow pace and how the author left space for the ugly side of grief. This book isn't about a person dying from cancer, it's about someone who loses their best friend.
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.