A Reason to See You Again

A Novel

By: Jami Attenberg

Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski

A Most Anticipated Book from: New York Times * People * Associated Press * Time * Saturday Evening Post * Real Simple * Book Bub * Alta

From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling novel of family, following a troubled mother and her two daughters over forty years and through a swiftly changing American landscape as they seek lives they can fully claim as their own.

The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. Triggered by the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyone’s lives soon take a dramatic turn.

Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her.

But they each learn in different ways that running from the past can’t save you—and then must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need to move forward.

Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the listener on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take.

©2024 Jami Attenberg (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

The perfect length for an interesting story

I used to love long books. No more. Anyway, this was the perfect length for this book, which spans decades but manages to feel complete with well-realized characters, some more interesting than others--for instance, I did not need Margaret's POV. AT ALL. It would have served the novel better to keep to POVs "in the family."

Story line was weak!

It was boring and the writing was very boring. I barely made it to the end.

Most depressing book ever

This book was so hard to listen to. Just broken people being broken people and few redeemable qualities.

Interesting technique, reverse foreshadowing, outright stating what happens in the future.

I liked the dislikable characters and could relate to the raw emotion. At times the plot skipped too many details.

Good read

I don’t write too many reviews but wanted write one for this book — mainly because there were so few of them. Good storyteller and a good read.

Heartfelt

Jami Attenberg’s characters feel like people you know; flawed and imperfect but still worthy of your love and devotion. An easy listen that offers all the feels.

Kept asking why I was continuing

Unsure what the point was. Had the obligatory gray couple, hard to keep track of characters,

jumped all over the place

Not at all cohesive, kept getting lost in new characters. I thought it would get better,but never did.

Writing style has really changed

It’s hard to tell if this is a performance thing or a book thing, since it’s auditory - but it felt like 75% of the book was written like a grocery list of descriptors (or maybe that’s just how it was read by the narrator?). Like, “the girl was short. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Angular. Expressionless. Tired.” I get that this is a mechanism for descriptions sometimes but it really did feel like that was the bulk of the book - (sad. Bored. Interested. She walked. Smoked. Read. like. this. And. This. One. Word. Sentence. Style. Went. On. For. Chapter. After. Chapter ) and this is a real departure from her other work which I ADORE majorly. The staccato-ness of these brief listicles made it hard to listen to. Bummer.

Could not finish

This novel is well-written with keen observations on family dynamics and the larger world. But as for the characters themselves, they are each so unlikeable, I just couldn't grow invested with any of their journeys or outcomes.