Reviews with content warning for Addiction - After Annie

To be honest, had I not been reading this book for the book club at my store (which I moderate), I probably would have put this down around 20% complete, wandered off, and just never finished it. I ended up having to pick up the audiobook and listen to it at 2x speed to get through it. This was...fine. I just didn't find the three point-of-view characters to be distinct from each other in tone. Ali didn't even seem like a tween/teen girl, like, what does she like? Not like? Not feel like doing any more because she's sad?? An incredible amount is left unexplored in the Annemarie character.

I also had an incredibly hard time situating this book in a time period. It felt like Quindlen was trying so hard to make the situation and characters generalizable or perhaps "timeless" that she ended up making them just bland and gray. There are no references to...anything. We eventually get a few bits here and there where you can kind of figure out that it's maybe mid-2010s but we know more about the area (rural, eastern-ish Pennsylvania) because of Annemarie's contacts with the Mennonites and Amish than we do about the three main characters themselves.

And, had I DNF'd at 20%, I would have been spared the use of the Jenny storyline, which I felt was extremely poorly handled, particularly when her older sister shows up out of the blue and trauma dumps in the school counselor's office.

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kellijones's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The further I got into this book, the more I liked it. In her almost stream-of-consciousness writing, the author fleshes out the characters so vividly. The book was sad in a matter-of-fact way that was not emotionally manipulative but emotive nonetheless. There are many profound observations about the ordinariness of loss, the things we tend not to talk about.

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kaligray's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.25

Content Warnings

chaptersofchase's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Do you gravitate towards books with characters overcoming a significant loss?
Thank you, Random House + PRH Audio, for the gifted copy of After Annie {partner}

Genre: Fiction
Format: 🎧
Audiobook Narration: ☆☆☆☆☆
Pub Date: 2.27.2024
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

“You know what bothers me,” Ali said in the car, looking straight ahead through the windshield. “That my father can have another wife, but we can’t ever have another mother.”

I often reach for books with characters trying to overcome a significant loss because they make me pause and reflect on how a loss like that might affect my life. Maybe it’s the idea of mentally and emotionally preparing myself for how I could be impacted or a reminder that I am not alone in my feelings of grief.

I went into After Annie, thinking it would be one of those stories that I would need to take slowly and may need to put down for something light. Because how could a story about a family losing their wife/mother/friend/sister not be too heavy? But, I never once felt heavy with emotion. The author, Anna Quindlen, did an incredible job telling this story without overshadowing the sadness of what happened to Annie Brown.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still sad, but it was more of a look at all the ways we have to grow and change our lives following the death of someone close to us. The different journeys of all the characters felt so realistic that I had to remind myself that After Annie is fictional.

💔 Realistic look at grief
🗣️ Omniscient narrator
💨 Quick read

📌 Addiction, death of a parent, death of a spouse, miscarriage

I recommend reading After Annie only if you are in a good mental and emotional state to handle a novel about losing someone. If you have any questions, please DM me to chat!

_

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Content Warnings

carolynlovesbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book was hard to put down! The subject matter is difficult, overcoming grief after losing your wife/mother/best friend, especially at such a young age. Its really well done and your heart breaks for the loss of Annie (she's amazing!) but it's easy to fall in love with her daughter Ali (my favorite character in the book, along with Ms. Cruz).

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