Matters of Life and Death: A Women's Friendship Novel

A great story. It seemed long for some reason. I guess I didn’t appreciate all the environmental conservation talk. I believe we need to do more but I normally read a book for enjoyment. This type of book I don’t read for education in current environmental info. I did enjoy the book. An interesting story with interesting characters. It is also a book about women mostly without or with not good men. Very modern day thinking. There was a good man in the book.

I started reading this book not knowing what to expect. I've read several other Becky Doughty books before, and have always loved them, but this one seemed a little iffy. Boy, was I ever wrong. I just loved this book and was sorry for it to end. Do we really have to say goodbye to Dani, Ranae, Hugo and all of the rest? Please tell me there will be another book...please?

I like that the story looks at our not so great emotions and fears and how we often create our worst problems.Forgiveness and grace can solve those same problems. Love it's fragile. Hugo learned a very tragic and painful lesson about expectations we can put on others without knowing or understanding their resistance.Environmentally friendly burial is interesting!

The other reviews are true! Once you start it it's very hard to put down. I was captivates immediately and like others have said, I did not really care for paragraphs of random descriptive detail that I sometimes had to wade through to get to the story. But it was lovely nonetheless.SPOILER***Its not clear during the early part of the book that Hugo is a widower, as opposed to a married man. That would have changed everything while reading those parts. I do wish the author had made this clear to begin with.

This book was an emotional rollercoaster! Between sadness and joy and anger and all the way around again. Definitely one of my favorite books this year!