After You

By Julie Buxbaum

Book Overview

When tragedy strikes across the ocean, Ellie Lerner drops everything--her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs--to travel to London and pick up the pieces of her best friend Lucy's life. While Lucy's husband, Greg, retreats into himself, his and Lucy's eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, has simply stopped speaking. Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden . As its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them, so, too, do Lucy's secrets--some big, some small. Peeling back the layers of her friend's life, Ellie is forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she'd hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie's carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life--and the lives of those around her--forever.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385341253
• ISBN13: 9780385341257
• Release Date: June 2010
• Publisher: Dial Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I love this book...

Let me start by saying that I haven't finished the book yet. I don't have to finish it to know how I feel about it and I LOVE it. Other reviewers tell you what the story is about so I won't repeat it. I don't have alot of time to read, I have a very active 2 year old but I've been picking it up when he goes to sleep and I find myself very much looking forward to it even though that means I don't get to watch the news. I've never read this author before but I will most definitely look at her other books. This is so emotional and it pulls you in. I almost hate to go to bed when I want to read! It's been a really long time since I've read a book that had that effect on me. This story is so emotional, I can "see" the characters and Sophie is a beautiful, struggling little girl. I want to hold her and soothe her, I want to hug Ellie and thank her for taking care of a child who isn't her responsibility. I can't wait to get even further into this book but I'm not looking forward to it ending. I'm so glad I chose this book to read, I love to read and this book is a good example of what a great book should be. I just finished the book. It's a GREAT book, probably the best I've read in a few years. I didn't see the way it ended coming at all and it's good to have a surprise once in a while! I wish it went on and on, letting me watch Ellie's life unfolding even further. I will definitely hold onto this book so I can read it again later. Love it!!

A great beach read!

I didn't want to like this book, but I did! I thought it was going to be formulaic and predictable, and at times it was, but overall it was a page turner without a packaged ending. Warning...if you like Jodi Picoult books, you won't like "After You" because Ms. Buxbaum cleverly leaves story lines unfinished. You'll actually have something worth talking about at book club! Ms. Buxbaum raises many questions, including do we ever really know those closest to us, and do they ever really know us? Do we give people a fair chance to know us? There are no answers, but it does give you pause for thought, and a rewarding story line too.

Couldn't Put It Down

I really can't believe how much I liked this book. I read Buxbaum's "Opposite of Love", which I liked, but this book just blew me away. Her language is beautiful. I stopped many times to reread a sentence or a metaphor. She is able to write amazing sentences while never taking away from the urgency of the story. I couldn't put the book down. I had to know what happened next. Beside a tiny plot point near the end of the book that I felt was a bit superfluous, the book was perfect. Definitely one of the best books I've read in a very long time.

IN THE AFTERMATH OF LOSS, NEW CONNECTIONS FORM

After You: A Novel is a story about the bonds that connect and sustain us. In the beginning moments, we meet Ellie, after the death of her best friend Lucy, when she goes to London for the funeral and then stays to take care of eight-year-old Sophie, who witnessed her mother's murder. And who has stopped talking. We follow their journey to healing, one plodding step at a time, and are gifted with the pain; and then the slowly returning moments of pleasure as the two read "The Secret Garden" together; we follow them as Sophie's language returns, as she verbalizes her feelings and reaches out to those around her. But back in Boston, in the home Ellie shared with Phillip, a marriage is disintegrating. It began when the couple lost their own baby--stillborn at eight months gestation--when they could not or would not share their grief. What will happen now? To Sophie, whose retreat from language masked a larger issue; to Ellie, who is discovering that her best friend Lucy had many secrets...secrets that would have damaged the lives of those around her. Can Ellie's marriage outlast the damage she and Phillip have created? Finding out the answers to these questions kept me swiftly turning pages, reveling in the beautiful story and its satisfying conclusion.