I loved this book. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure. So few books focus on the relationship we have with our best friends and few focus on the end ... This does both. I loved how the mundane and profound interspersed in this novel. So much of what Newman wrote resonated with me. The deep love you have for family and friends even when you screw things up. We definitely all want impossible things, and sometimes we have to settle for loving what is. "Everyone does, and yet it's unendurable. There is so much love inside of us. How do we become worthy of it? And then where does it go?"

It's hard to imagine a funny book about palliative care - but We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman is exactly that. Set in rural Massachusetts, most of the action takes place in a hospice. The narrator, Ashley, is a 45-year old woman, and her best friend since childhood is dying of ovarian cancer.

The book opens with the scene when it becomes clear that no further treatment is possible. Edi and Ash (and Edi's family: husband Jude and brother Jonah) decide Edi should move from her home in New York City, to a hospice in Ash's small hometown.From this point until the inevitable end, the narrative deals with Edi's declining health and mental state.

I initially found Ash's relentless joking and funniness a bit jarring. But it didn't take long until I was absorbed in the rhythm of it, and by the end I could feel the wisdom in Newman's blend of light and dark.n addition to the humour, Ash's coping strategies include her loving connection with her two grown daughters; her charming, unpredictable relationship with her ex-husband; and a surprisingly active sex life.

Ash's relationships outside the hospice also support the narrative arc of the novel. We always know what will happen at the end; the question is how we get there..Above all this is a book about friendship, In this novel, enough of Edi and Ash's shared memories are captured that you understand what the sum of them mean - both to the one who is dying, and to the one who is left.

"I have the feeling you'd have," Ash says, "if there were a vault with all your jewels in it, everything precious, only the person with the combination to the lock was hanging on to a penthouse ledge by a fingertip." Whether that metaphor works for you or not, read this novel. You'll cry, you'll laugh, and by the last page you'll know how it feels.

'We All Want Impossible Things' by Catherine Newman

This book tells the story of Ash and Edi. Like all relationships their friendship has been shaped by the ups and downs of life but it has endured through the years. Edi is now in a hospice receiving end of life care and Ash is supporting her through it but Ash is struggling, her life is messy and she is trying to find her way.

I think what affected me most as I read this book was the singularity of Edi and Ash's friendship and they way it linked the people closest to them. I was constantly struck by what a rare thing they had and how lucky they were to have found each other. The beautiful writing takes you to the heart of their relationship and their shared history and makes it is impossible not to become wholly immersed in their story. Yes there are some heart sinking moments of sorrow but it's a story which is also very very funny and full of life.

And though I was keen to read this book I wasn't sure if it would be a good fit for me. My young daughter has cancer and is going through chemotherapy and I wondered if the topic would be too emotive but it took me away from my own situation and offered a life affirming story which buoyed me rather than pulled me down.

If you're looking for a book which will really connect you with the characters and make you weep and laugh out loud while offering up some wisdom then this one is for you.

It will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions.

It will make you want to grab life by the balls.

It deserves the hype.

You should read it if you get the chance.

It will be in the shops in less than a week - January 12th.

Thank you to @netgalley and @doubledaybooks for an ARC of this book.

A heartwarming and heartbreaking read.. Astory of love, loss and friendships told through the final days of one of the friends.

I've read the quarter of the book. It's about the friendship of two women, one of them dying in a hospice all through the book (up to the point I've read that is). To me, the story didn't go anywhere and I had difficulty following the dialogues which were jumping here and there, often back in time.

At one point, a new patient arrives in the hospice: a baby in a cot, dying. Most probably it has nothing to do with the main plot (if there's one), but that was it, I couldn't read this on.

Heartbreaking yet equally heartwarming.

It took a moment to get into the author's style of writing, but once I was into it I couldn't put it down. Even when you know how it will end. But it's that disjointed feelings around what people feel and do when grieving and how grief shows up in so many different ways even before the person is gone.

*trigger warnings for anyone who has lost a loved one, especially to cancer

We all want impossible things by Catherine Newman

This book reminded me of The last days of Rabbit Hayes which was one of my top reads last year. Edi and Ash have been best friends forever, going through many milestones together. When it is time for Edi to go in to a hospice it is Ash who is there to support her. The book is sad due to the subject matter but it is also a lovely story about friendship and it really made me laugh in places. It is heartbreaking, hilarious and beautifully written. A 4.5-5 stars read for me.

Thank you to netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. We all want impossible things is out on 12th January 2023.

The book took a little bit to get into the groove of the writing style, this is my first time reading this author's work so It may be down to that. However, once I got into the story and the characters I found it to be a really good story about the end of life and what being in a hospice can be like. It does what it sets out to do, there's a little bit of everything and although you know ultimately where things are heading, it's no less enjoyable to go along for the ride.

Wow, what a book! Even though we all knew the ending to this one I still couldn’t help but want to read a few more pages to find out what was happening.
This book is so beautifully written it had me laughing, rolling my eyes then sobbing. Although it’s a story set in a hospice it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s life affirming and shows the power of friendships.

Sadly, this book did not work for me on a number of levels.

As someone familiar with loss and grief, I expected this story about the death of a young woman in end-of-life hospice care (and based on the personal experience of the author) to be illuminating, handled with sensitivity, and above all to connect with something deep inside me. Instead, I got a writing style that was brash, disjointed and difficult to follow, unconvincing characters, and a story that just didn’t resonate.

I struggled from the beginning, as I couldn’t get on board with the idea of a loving husband sending his dying wife away to a distant hospice, where her best friend of 40 years — rather than he — would be the one to oversee her final days. Notwithstanding the fact that a child was involved and that he could get there in a matter of hours, the very notion of this appalled me.

I understand that the aim was to show what it would be like for someone to undertake this onerous task. The necessary coping mechanisms, the emotional upset, the juxtaposition of everyday responsibilities with the demands of caring for someone in hospice. And to some extent, these ideas did come through. Just not in a way that moved me.

What’s more, I really struggled to warm to Ash, the carer and narrator of this sad tale, whose behavior (especially sexual) frankly baffled me. I get how disorienting such an experience must be, and I wanted to sympathize with her, but I couldn’t understand her enough to care.

Another criticism — minor, some might argue — was the naming of the characters. There’s a lot of them, which can be a challenge for readers at the best of times. So why give three of them names beginning with J — Jude, Jonah and Jules? I had a problem with this, and it definitely affected my ability to follow the story.

At the end of the day, this should have been a heartbreaking, thought-provoking read. For me it was neither. Even as an empath and a ready weeper, I didn’t shed a single tear. And I couldn’t help comparing it with two other books I’d recently read on a similar theme: Richard E Grant’s A Pocketful of Happiness and Fiona Scarlett’s Boys Don’t Cry, both of which conveyed the essence of the topic with the utmost tenderness and beauty.

Sadly, We All Want Impossible Things pales in comparison.

A heartbreaking read as we follow the last days of Edi who is dying of cancer. It's an emotional read but I found myself not fully falling into the book as it felt like we didn't really get to know Edi to connect with her and I wasn't able to truly warm up to Ash, the narrator. Thank you to to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

A touching poignant story of love and friendship, when one of the friends is diagnosed with terminal cancer and the other must accompany her through her final days squeezing joy out of everything they can. A tough but beautiful read.

I read this book in a day, such a heartbreaking read but full of love and celebration of friendship. I laughed and sobbed. Have only just finished and know I’ll be thinking about it for some time.

A tragi-comedy dealing with the end of life and how we support friends and family. Ash is helping her best friend Edi die in a hospice due to ovarian cancer. Edi has a young son, which makes the situation even more complex and harder to deal with. The story is from Ash's perspective and shines on a light in the darkness of loss, death, grief and the dark humour that can bring.

Having lost a family member a few months ago from cancer who went to a hospice 3 times, this was at times very close to home, but so well written.

I requested this book after a recommendation from a friend, and I have to say I felt a bit anxious about reading it. As someone with metastatic breast cancer, it looked like it might be a difficult read for me. As it turns out, I loved it.

The story centres on the few (very few) weeks that Edi spends in a hospice. Her best friend, Ash, is supporting her, and trying to manage her own messy, chaotic life alongside all this. It's funny, it's moving without being sentimental, it's engaging and absorbing, and it doesn't shy away from the messiness of dying - leaking stoma bags, changing sheets - and the way life carries on even when someone you love is dying.

I loved the fact that Edi is an absolutely three-dimensional person. She's not a saint, she's not a representative of "the dying" - she's grumpy, she's sad, she retains enjoyment of small things, she's as honest as it's possible to be. And Ash is great - caring, chaotic, messed up, doing her best to be a mother and a friend.

This book is all the cliches - it made me laugh. It made me cry. It's life affirming even though it's about dying. It's hopeful, even though it's about grief. It is all the cliches, and yet it's not a cliche - it's a warm, vulnerable, life affirming read, and there are lots of people I'm planning to give it to. So, thank you, Catherine Newman for writing it, and thank you NetGalley for letting me read it. I will re-read it, it meant a lot to me.

This book feels truly authentic and as such is relatable and very moving.

We all have to deal with death and the end stages of life at some point and the writing in this book is sad but also funny and uplifting.

It’s a very simple premise executed brilliantly.

Welcome to 2023 everyone! I have been so excited to share this review. We All Want Impossible Things is sure to be one of my very top reads of 2023 and is most definitely a book I will be recommending to anyone who will listen. It is one of those stories that genuinely grabs you and burrows into your heart and remains. As you’ll see from the blurb, this is the story of Ash and Edi, two women with a friendship that is almost as long as their lives and has taken them through highs and lows but now is reaching a devastating ending. Edi is in a hospice and Ash is supporting Edi through the final stage of her life whilst trying to make some sense of her own. Ash is struggling, doing her best, but struggling.

The friendship between Edi and Ash is a special one, and one that I don’t think many people ever truly experience. All too often life gets in the way and whilst there’s often good intention, people can drift apart. I adored seeing the little looks at events from their past and seeing how these have shaped their relationship.

The writing in this story is exquisite – there are times where I have wanted to (but I don’t write in books so haven’t) highlight sentences and paragraphs and store to return to. So often Catherine writes something which made me go ‘THIS, one hundred percent this.’ Her use of language is wonderful and so many emotions are evoked whilst reading her words. I had a lump in my throat through many parts of this story and needed some tissues more than one. But there were plenty of parts where I laughed and felt joy whilst reading. It is a true emotional rollercoaster in the very best possible way.

If you want a story to draw you in, grab your heart and connect you to some fabulous characters then this is the story for you. This book is everything. Truly everything.

It’s a rare kind of magic to find a book that makes you laugh out loud, then cry your eyes out a page or two later. This book had me sobbing and laughing and sobbing again, and though it’s only 2 January, I’m confident it will be one of my favourite books this year. Katherine Heiny meets Nora Ephron meets Meg Mason. If you loved Sorrow and Bliss, you’ll love this.

I’ve had an advance reader copy of this book for quite a while now but I put off reading it several times knowing it was set mainly in a hospice and is about a woman whose best friend is dying of cancer.

There will be lots of people for whom this is just too sensitive a topic. If this is something you think you can read, you’ll find a book so lovingly written, so full of humour and warmth, so clever and witty, so human. It’s heartbreaking but it’s worth it.

Set in the US between Massachusetts and New York, this book is an ode to friendship, to family, to complicated lives, to messy death, to those who work in hospice care, to the bottomless pool of grief we’re plunged into when we lose someone close to us. It’s so funny, and so sad, and so good. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Most definitely. 5/5 ⭐️

*We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman will be published on 12 January. Sincere thanks to the author, @doubledaybooks and @netgalley for the ARC. As always, this is an honest review.*

I am DNFing this at 30% as this isn't the story I was anticipating based on the blurb.

My expectation was that the plot would revolve around Ash AND Edi, focusing on their relationship and the time they spent together making memories and learning to cope with Edi's imminent death. What I actually got was a story that talked about food A LOT and had a female protagonist (Ash) who was very self-centred. Her internal monologue and reflection on past events made me suspect this wasn't just a coping mechanism in the here and now but was part of who she was.

Rather than the touching, gentle, moving tale of a terminal illness, the book felt brash, loud and, at times, sleazy. This just wasn't for me, due to personal preferences, though I am sure others will enjoy the book.

Oh wow, you really need a box of tissues to read this book! It is narrated by Ash, whose friend Edi has terminal cancer and is receiving end of life care in a hospice. We get a glimpse into Edi's last few weeks, as her husband and friends take it in turns to keep her company and help care for her. Their grief and anguish is reflected in different ways and hits them at different times and we see how they all support each other, whilst trying to make the most of every moment.

This is a  harrowing read, but  it is sensitively approached with the tongue in cheek wit of main character Ash. Beautiful, yet heartbreaking at the same time.