This book was heartbreakingly wonderful--I read it cover to cover in one day and couldn't put it down. Wonderful story and great author!

You might not always agree with Olivia's choices or find her appealing but golly, she's dealing with loss as best she can. When her mom dies, she finds herself unmoored, a condition that worsens when she finds letters to her mom signed by the mysterious F. Her journey to untangle her mother's secrets will lead her to India. While this is a well trod path for self discovery, Cantor has found something new with her young protagonist. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this well written meditation on a young woman struggling with the past and coming into her own.

I don’t know why the synopsis of ‘Alternative Remedies for Loss’ by Joanna Cantor says it’s ‘slyly funny’ novel, because I wasn’t laughing or smiling while reading. The story was messy, chaotic and that is exactly why I like it.

As we know from the synopsis, the novel is about a girl Olivia whose mother recently died. Olivia couldn’t move on and seemed annoyed that her brothers and father could. So she was all alone with her sadness. I think, that was the reason why she did some stupid things and was not really nice with her family. I liked all that messy things and Olivia’s thoughts. It felt real.

Also, I liked reading about trips to India and Olivia discovering yoga. It was nice and simply described, so I could totally imagine all the places where Olivia was. It was even inspiring for me to google about those places in India and now I am thinking about doing some yoga too.

What I didn’t like is that the novel was a little chaotic and not chronologic. One chapter ends in one place, and another begins with something unknown for us. You think ‘how did Olivia end up here?’ and then author explains. For me it is annoying, when I know future events before I know how we came to them. It just takes more time to understand a few pages of a new chapter.

I’m not sure that I would recommend this novel to all my friends, because I myself still don’t know whether I like ‘Alternative Remedies for Loss’ or I will forget about this novel with time. But something attracted me in this book, I was just so comfortable with the plot and all the characters, even if I don’t like all of them. I felt as if I was prying into someone else’s life. All in all, I definitely had a good time with this book.

Alternative Remedies for Loss is the story of Olivia, a 22 year old, who has recently lost her mother to cancer. Everyone in her family has seemingly moved on, including her father who has a girlfriend already. Olivia is lost without her mothers guiding force and is stumbling through adulthood like a lost little puppy. I could relate to Olivia, losing a parent is an earthquake that shakes your very foundation. Grieving a parent can really shake up your life. This book takes you from New York to India as Olivia tries to find her new normal. This book had great promise but unfortunately fell flat for me. While I could relate to what Olivia was feeling, she came across as selfish and incredibly self absorbed. I enjoyed reading about her time in India and the descriptions of the temples she visited and the ashram she stayed at. Thank you @bloomsburypublishing for this advance reader in exchange for my honest review. Alternative Remedies for Loss hits shelves May 8th!

I received this book from Net Galley for and honest review. Olivia the main character was not fleshed out as a character. Neither was the other characters. I felt that I never knew what they were about the whole book. The family were still grieving over their Mother who had died a few months ago They were still grieving and their father had a girlfriend a few months after their Mother had died. There was a secret found which surprised quite a few people.about their Mother things are not always what they seem.

Olivia is a young, yet strong and surprisingly mature, woman who is in a constant state of search. Though many of her decisions are wrong, or at least not the best ones, she approaches them with determination and follows them through with what she feels is, if anything else, is obligation. She faces such difficult situations, yet carries herself, through and over them, with her head held high.

I enjoyed reading about Olivia and her ventures. I love her tenacity and her courage she shows, and how she can pick herself right back up again when she fails and falls. The writing and the novel were easy to read and I especially felt drawn to the descriptions of her time in India, and learning about the culture and the ashram.

Thank you to Bloomsbury USA and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced reading copy.

3.5 stars

I related to the plot of this book in many uncanny ways - a lot of the plot points matched up with things that happened to me in my early 20's. However, I must say I hoped that I didn't handle it in the same ways as the narrator. It's fairly obvious from the beginning of the book that she makes some bad choices and could even be described as unlikable. I would argue that everyone in their early 20's can be unlikeable at times, but I digress. Despite her lack of judgment, selfishness, and poor decision making, I did enjoy this book and how the main character grew over time.


I received this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

Thank you to Net Galley for the Advanced Copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. I didn’t love this book. I gave it 3 stars, rounding up from 2.5. The protagonist is young and self centered. She’s finding her way through her grief after her mother’s death. She makes mistakes, as to be expected, but she comes across as too selfish and immature. I finished it, expecting something relatable or interesting to happen and it just didn’t. She was a tough character to relate to.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36222643-alternative-remedies-for-loss

Alternative Remedies for Loss had potential as a story about grief, complicated family relationships, and a young woman in her early 20s trying to find her way without her mother to rely on. Unfortunately, the book fails to deliver on most of these points.

Olivia is chronically unlikable, in such a way that she fails to endear herself to the reader even with the knowledge of all that has gone wrong in her life recently. She is dismissive and downright bratty to her siblings, who go out of their way to give her the benefit of the doubt. She thinks she is better than her coworkers, despite the fact that she is unmotivated and generally gives little effort on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, it is nearly impossible to have sympathy for Olivia as she works through the process of grieving her late mother. The story is there, but there is wall between the reader and the emotions of the characters themselves.

Another issue arises in Olivia's questionable relationship with a man who has hired the company she works for. The man is significantly older, and their power dynamics remain uncomfortable for the duration of their relationship. He pushes her around, constantly emphasizing his power and her lack thereof.

The story itself doesn't begin until significantly into the novel and fighting through pages of Olivia blowing off and lying to everyone around her makes the arrival of a plot feel like finally being allowed to breathe. That is, until Olivia kept up her patterns, uncaring in the face of how her mother's relationship would impact anyone but herself.

Considering the universality of grief and struggling through your early 20s, it is remarkable how often this book failed to be relatable or even palatable. It was an empty collection of words, lacking emotion or a story strong enough to carry an apathetic readership through the full 320 pages.

I understand that people have different ways of handling loss. I also remember being young and single. The drug use and random sexual partnering are not how I want to think the millenial generation is behaving.

I usually don't like books that glorify relationships between Mothers and Daughters. Yet, what Cantor presents here is a realistic tale of the events that happen when a daughter is grief-stricken after the loss of her Mother.

Olivia makes mistakes often followed by some questionable choices that alter the path of her life forever as she tries to process the grief she is overwhelmed by. I really enjoyed the writing, it was clear, precise and funny in places you'd least expect any humor at all.

I was really drawn to this book because of it's title and cover, but I was definitely intrigued by the plot once I read the summary and happy to start reading. Unfortunately, this was not really for me. I couldn't connect to the characters and the story sort of dragged. It wasn't bad, it just felt really similar to lots of other books I've read and I am afraid, it will be forgettable.

Was expecting a book on dealing with grief not a book of fiction, must have had a blonde moment when I requested it.

'It felt like an iconic moment in the movie of her life gone sour. She knew she should go home- it was just one regrettable night of drinks, nothing that couldn’t be washed off.'

Olivia left Vassar to be with her mother during her final days, and something inside of her withers with the immense loss. Everyone else in her family is coping far better than her. Olivia’s father is dating a woman named June, who seems a bit ‘too comfortable’ for Olivia’s liking, inviting her on a family trip that was meant to be a healing after her mother’s death. “Her anger was a poison that wouldn’t stop spreading until it had infected every part of that trip.” It’s hard not to understand her emotional

She knows she should be putting her life in some semblance of order, instead she allows herself to rebel, to make men ‘earn’ her time. This pivotal moment will rear its ugly head later, because sometimes when you roll in the dirt, it leaves stains. Olivia is young and crashing along, making mistakes, very self-centered but the young often are. That’s not an accusation, when we’re young everything tends to revolve around us, because we don’t have other things pulling us away, we’re so focused on trying to figure out not just who we are and who we want to be but also, how to attain the future we want. You throw relationships and loss into that mix, and it can spell disaster. Olivia can’t see past her nose sometimes, but as the only daughter she has a different way of relating in the family dynamic. Mothers and daughters have a unique bond, there is never enough time to take away everything we need.

Finding letters to her mother from the mysterious F is not something she can let go of, and it puts her on a sort of spiritual quest, that ends up giving her more questions than answers. Her mother was the spiritual one, not her. This is default, this is a way to connect to her mother. That she was a person, with her own longings and needs, not just a mother, that she had her own choice to make about her illness, will leave Olivia rocking. The truth is, she can’t move forward without looking back. Maybe we never fully understand our family anymore than we can dissect the things we do to ourselves.

As Olivia unravels, she falls pretty low, but somewhere inside of her remains the smart, hopeful, strong woman she has yet become.

Publication Date: May 8, 2018

Bloomsbury USA

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t connect with this narrative or the central character. Did not finish book. Therefore, would prefer not to rate this book. Rating to indicate not finished only.

I really, really wanted to like this book but I could not get into it and could not even get past the first chapter

This was a disappointment. Supposedly a tale of grief and coming to terms, but there was little passion or power in the narrative. Instead, a solipsistic central character took advantage of those around her and learned a smidgeon of maturity, then carried on her comfy and privileged way. It’s a little surprising that such a novel finds room in the marketplace these days.

And here I am, after finishing yet another 'young protagonist struggling with life and their place in it' novel feeling the same way I feel over and over again. Underwhelmed, a little frustrated and wishing for more. Alternative Remedies for Loss isn't any better or worse than other novels of it's ilk, if anything it's probably slightly better than middle of the road. The story of Olivia, the youngest of three children grasping with family dynamics and life in the aftermath of her mother's death from cancer was definitely written with care. My problem, as seems to always be the case with these books, is that Olivia's plight felt overindulgent and improbable. I was expecting the story to progress through her journey with grief, but instead it felt like a selfish portrayal of how much she could get away with in the name of that grief.

I generally don't like novels with very young protagonists, somehow I never build up a true sense of understanding and empathy; this book is quite the opposite.
Despite the fact that Olivia is a young woman searching for herself, while dealing with her memories of her mother, I truly identified with her character. This is a tribute to the author who made youthful confusion, angst and the job of maturing and facing life crises so clear and accessible.

Olivia is reeling from the death of a beloved mother, trying to understand how her father has moved on while she is stuck in memories and regrets. She had left school to spend every moment with her mother after her terminal diagnosis and now she is adrift, not ready to return to school and not prepared for the adult world.

Of course, she makes several missteps in relationships and at work. The reader has to hope that she will true her course and move on. She is well-supported by her brother, but must deal with negative feelings toward June, her father's new partner.

Her greatest crime is her obsessional love for her mother. It is in searching through her mother's things that she comes upon letters, signed F. It is her search for F and the eventual meetings that help guide her to a path toward maturity, and hopefully, happiness.

This is not a simple, pretty read, it is complex and emotional. Cantor does an incredible job of bringing Olivia and her family to life. She is forced to face the inevitable need to move on and Cantor ends simply with Olivia finally moving past her year of inertia. No fairy tale endings here, simply a realistic look at a young woman slowly taking charge of her life after great loss.

I must say I loved the book, and I loved the character of Olivia. Strangely, I found two other female characters extremely sympathetic, Ty's fiancée Christina and the "interloper" June. This is a must read.

Couldn't get into this one--the characters didn't gel for me.