This book started out strong for me, but ending up being a "did not finish" because it couldn't hold my attention and I just didn't connect with the story.

I finished the book but if I am being entirely honest I was bored the entire time. I loved the idea of the book but I could not get into reading it and it felt like a chore to read.

A beautifully written book about a woman at a crossroads, and an interesting meditation on life and death. I can see the protagonist being divisive, but I found her fascinating. 3.5 stars.

Evelyn is a 37 year old woman, recently unemployed, married but with no children, who is facing a bit of a personal existential crisis in her life. She knows she and her husband of many years are growing apart, and she knows her parents are getting older. She may end up alone. She stumbles upon the opportunity to train to become somewhat of an "exit companion" in which she would evaluate and assist in deaths of those who are ready to stop suffering and voluntarily move on to the end of their lives.

I admit that I had this sitting on my shelf for a long time and something drew me in to pick it up. It low key captivated me from page one. I was fascinated by Evelyn and her journey. I found so many parallels to my own life and shared thoughts I've had about life and death. This was such a unique subtle look at human behavior, the need to be loved, the need to be connected, to be remembered. I absolutely was enraptured by the way both Daphne and Lawrence looked back at their own lives and shared experiences with Evelyn. Life is such a unique and intimate thing, and what does it mean when yours is fading away? When is life just a solitary journey and who will remember you? Gosh this was so beautiful and introspective. I just adored it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this opportunity. Sorry it took me so long, but it was worth the wait!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read and review this book. While this title is no longer within the realm of my current reading interests I appreciate the opportunity in receiving an ARC.

This, presumably, is intended to be a serious fictional examination of the single female state, of a particular character’s difficulty connecting, of personal truth in adult relationships. The author deserves credit for tackling such issues in a grave and thoughtful manner. But... the result is a text of extreme dreariness. The reader is trapped inside the consciousness of a character who is trying to grapple with her self. The writing is free of flourishes. The result is a novel of severe solipsism that tests the reader’s patience to the last, wind scoured page. Not an easy novel to stay with, or to enjoy.

Evelyn, the main character of this novel, is nothing if not self-absorbed, which is not so surprising given the Instagram era we are forced to live in. Evelyn is 37 years old as the story unfolds, and she’s grappling with that most mundane of mid-life crises: a breakup with her husband Bobby whom she feels is not a good match for her soul.

The truth is that Bobby is not all that unhappy with Evelyn’s decision to break up because he can’t seem to connect to her either and in short order, he is dating someone else.

Evelyn’s transition is nowhere near that smooth. Even though she is a fierce navel gazer, she just cannot seem to connect to herself. Where to turn? Evelyn cashes in her 401K money so she can spend some time finding herself, and this is where the book takes off.

Evelyn joins a group of like-minded souls who are training to be “exit guides,” aides who assist those with terminal diseases who want to meet their maker on their own terms. The training feels very much like an Alcohol Anonymous meeting, at least as Waclawiak describes that first meeting:

“We were of varying ages in this room, but it felt like we had all somehow misjudged the big life events. We were focused on the end because we had already fucked up the middle part. We were flailing. Or maybe just I was flailing. People in the world were filling their social media feeds with momentous life change like weddings and babies and new, serous jobs, and though some people in this room might have been doing just that, too, I was not. I had hit a point of stagnation, and I felt like I was dying.”

When she gets home (she’s still with Bobby at this point), her soon-to-be-ex compares what she’s doing to her latest fad.

“I feel like you start something new every week. A beading workshop. Spin class.”

“That’s vaguely insulting,” she says.

And she right of course which is one of the myriad reasons the split soon takes place.

Whatever Bobby thinks of the group, Evelyn’s trip down this odd career path (which feels like it might actually exist or will in the near future) elevates the book above other novels of this sort. Soon Evelyn is interacting with head trainer Bethanny and other rising death doulas.

It’s no surprise that she’s attracted to a fellow exit guide trainee, but she remains a bit frightened of him as well since he’s her first potential lover since her husband. Truth is, Evelyn seems a bit frightened of everyone be they fellow guides or the “clients” who are dying.

A woman named Daphne is Evelyn’s first client and she asks Evelyn, on the sly, to take her to a former dive bar where she brags about all the fun she used to have in the bar’s rest room. It’s a touching reference because it reminds Evelyn and us that even the dying were once living it up,. But the present is, as they say, ever present. As Daphne and Evelyn prepare to leave, Evelyn collapses from her illness, and both women are cruelly reminded why they even know each other.

And then there are the male clients Evelyn must treat as well, and there is a much different dynamic present, the one you might expect when men and women find themselves alone in a highly charged atmosphere. A former pornographer puts Evelyn’s hand on his genitals, and she tells him it’s okay. There is another randy guy who is dying. Evelyn finds him so attractive and vibrant that she has sex with him. Evelyn can see she’s headed for a world with no boundaries and abruptly quits the exit guide program.

She retreats to the desert to ruminate on her life, to try to understand her dying alcoholic father and her mother and the choices all of them made. She goes deeper and deeper into the desert, visiting ghost towns in search of herself until she winds up in Death Valley.

She thinks about what a therapist once told her about there being only two types of “emotional disasters” that get imprinted on children. One tells a child “you are bad” while the other leaves the child with a feeling of “you are no one.”

Evelyn feels she is no one. In the hands of a less polished writer, this novel might be one long cliché, but Karolina Waclawiak is no mere writer. She is a master of painting emotions with many different colors. Consider Evelyn’s thoughts in the desert as she hears a far-off plane overhead:

“I once again had the feeling of I am no one well up inside of me. As I looked up at the jet hanging low overhead, I wanted to plane to see me. So I took a few steps and reclined on the mud that had cracked into near-perfect squares and stared up at the plane and the sky. ‘Can you see me?’ I wanted to call out. But I didn’t. Because I wanted to be seen, and not seen at all.”

Crossroads a word that I found surfacing again and again as I read this striking journey into the final turn of the road. Evelyn for reasons too numerous to mention is searching for purpose and direction. She decides that helping people in the final and most vulnerable moments of life the last ones is where she feels her call. In helping others through the last vista of life she comes to terms with her own past. A great slice of life given insight and ultimate peace. Happy reading

While the writing was excellent, I felt the depressing nature of the story was too much for me to handle at this point of my life. There’s a lot of symbolism is this story of a woman who has to deal with her marriage falling apart and her failing marriage. So how does she cope with this. I was hoping for something cheerful, but instead she decided to become an “exit guide” for people who are thinking about committing suicide. And where does she end up? Death Valley. What I did like is how Evelyn was honest in her assessment of her abilities to cope.

This book has been on my radar for a while. I typically read suspense novels and sometimes I just need a break. This novel was wholesome and asks some deep questions. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes Jodi Picolt, Delia Owens, or Jessica Barry.

2.5 stars rounded up. I felt like I was missing something. It’s an interesting premise, and one that I normally wouldn’t shy away from. But this is the wrong time for me to be reading a book about dying with dignity. It was especially bad because I didn’t like the protagonist, as I thought she was entirely wrong for the job. To me she came across as an emotional vampire. I get that no reasonable person can get immune to death, but with Evelyn, it was more about her than it was about the dying people. This is all about Evelyn kind of coming to terms with herself, a journey she accomplishes by easing and/or witnessing the deaths of two and a half strangers.

The book was riveting, I’d give it that. It’s also exquisitely written. But the whole thing just made me upset. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but here it is again: maybe if I hadn’t read this during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d have been a little more sympathetic towards a person like Evelyn. We get to know as the book goes on that her hang ups are not entirely hers alone - she has her father to thank for that. But I’d rather she just went to therapy for it, instead of working as a euthanasia helper. This review is confused, because I cannot put into words exactly what it was that revolted me. But this is the truth, it did revolt me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Evelyn is driving around Los Angeles contemplation the impending death of her parents and the death of her marriage to Bobby. She's, to put it mildly, a 37 year old mess. So what does she do? She becomes a death doula, helping people who are terminally ill prepare for their death. Daphne, Lawerence, and Daniel have distinct issues and voices and, in fact, are more sympathetic and interesting than Evelyn. Each one of them gives her another bite to put in her brain about how to handle her life. This is a short novel and one which is meant to make the reader contemplate the reader's own existence. It's hard to know how to recommend this- the subject matter is grim, not just the dying characters but Evelyn's life as well. I suspect I would have liked this more if the news re the pandemic wasn't so unending. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Thank you to the author, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Carrying lots of bleakness, despair, listlessness and self-destructive behavior, the heroine is searching for a panacea that will turn her life around. Sadly, this is a chimera, as she will always take her problems with her wherever she goes - and she seems oblivious to the fact that both problem and solution rest within herself. The involvement with a group helping terminally ill people exit their lives sounds almost cultish, or at least skating on very thin ice in terms of legality, but provides a counterpoint to the heroine's inner landscape. I found the heroine deeply unlikeable, and the book - while parts were beautifully written - endlessly tedious.

Life Events is a complex novel that I needed to think about for a while after finishing before reviewing. I think some might find the main character, Evelyn, unrelatable, but I found I saw a lot of myself in her and suspect she embodies a lot of the complicated feelings swirling inside many women in their 30s - early 40s. Headed toward a divorce, Evelyn takes a new job working with the chronically ill as a death doula. Through this heavy work she is able to process her feelings about her marriage ending, her father’s alcoholism, her parents’ aging, and, ultimately, her own identity. A quietly powerful rumination on what makes a life and what undoes it. I quite enjoyed this one and will recommend it to friends. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read it in exchange for this honest opinion.

Life Events is a unique read and guaranteed to make you think! On the verge of divorce, Evelyn travels the California highways alone. In her search for answers, she enlists to become an exit guide, assisting terminally ill patients. The relationships she forms and experiences help her come to terms with her own issues and life choices. The writer has a wonderful, dark humor and successfully explores our ideas of life and death.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.

Evelyn is running on empty. Comforted by ghost towns she drives through, as she avoids confronting adulthood and the strained relationship with her husband, what she doesn’t realize is the real burned out world is the one living under her skin- worse, it’s of her own construction. Tormented by her thoughts she finds solace joining a group. Under the training of leader Bethany, thirty-seven-year old Evelyn is on her way to becoming an exit-guide; a job helping people die consciously. In this program trainees are urged to be vulnerable, honest, raw with themselves and each other. For Evelyn, who spends her waking moments avoiding confronting anything that causes her pain, it is a jarring experience. How does one face their days knowing that their loved ones, like her parents, could one day disappear? Also on the verge of death is her marriage to Bobby. Constant to nothing, Evelyn can’t seem to figure out what she should be doing, anymore than she can understand her own emotions. Could Bobby be right about her inability to stick with anything? It is her desperate hope that death can give her life definition.

It isn’t the fear of her own annihilation (death) that terrifies her but of those she loves dying around her, a permanent abandonment. But there are bigger voids within her and inertia that keeps her from making grown-up decisions about which direction to go. She discovers there are no shortcuts through grief anymore than there are shortcuts through healing. Therapy has failed to give her the introspection that this new job venture seems to be providing. One of the helpers (Nathan) has been out in the field, enriched by it, enthusiastic, giving her encouragement assuring her she would be a perfect fit but she feels she cannot open up like the others and worse, she is attracted to him. Bobby can’t relate to her decision, after-all Evelyn has nothing to grieve, unless you count the possibility of one day having something to mourn.

Can Evelyn stop being an observer in her own life? When she meets her first client, Daphne, a sixty-four year old woman with Stage 4 breast cancer and the other clients that follow, she learns that life is made up of the ‘out-of-control things’. None of the clients look or behave as she expects, in fact often look very much alive. Daniel is too young to be dying and just like with Nathan, she is drawn to him too. What will they teach her? That acceptance isn’t necessarily defeat, particularly if one can still have the freedom of choices, even through great illness and loss. Evelyn has spent too much time half-in, as if by not allowing herself to feel fully, to open up, she is staving off pain and grief.

Evelyn is a woman in crisis, troubled that she can’t feel immediate warmth and intimacy as if something is wrong with her, some deep flaw, when really she is feeling too much- fear, loneliness, guilt, desire and shame. Shame that she is nothing but a failure, suspicious of lives variables in relationships, sure that she has too often strayed from being loyal to herself, her own needs. Like most people, she struggles to define herself, to find meaning in life but is it found in roles, through other people, if so- what happens when they are no longer here? Why does Evelyn still feel like a child, unable to have her life and all it’s pieces put together?

Then there is the strain of the relationship with her alcoholic father. The ever present question- why? Why do we do the destructive things we do, to ourselves, to others and why can’t we stop? Maybe there are no revelations in life and in spite of this we must be strong enough to carry on, thrive even through the pain of our darkest days. Fear is nothing new, it is a thinking creature’s price for being alive. Evelyn’s choice of becoming an exit guide when she is terrified of losing people herself is peculiar. She is stunted but the picture becomes clearer, how she got to this point, in understanding the complicated relationship between she and her ill father. Perfect read for anyone who has ever worked themselves into hysterics contemplating life and it’s meaning, or lack thereof. Sometimes when you look too closely you miss the meaning. How can you understand yourself or others if you won’t go all in? The problem for Evelyn is… how?

Publication Date: July 28, 2020

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Emotionally moving a novel of a woman searching as her life is falling apart.. s She goes on a life search and takes the path of helping people who are facing death.A book so well written full of drama emotion and even humor,#netgalley#lifeevents

This is very well written, particularly since it deals with a topic that makes most people uncomfortable. Not surprisingly, it's a bit dark, but it's also emotional at times. The main character is not particularly likeable but she is well conceived and fully formed. Recommended for lit fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Somewhat obscure but ultimately a moving study of death and our fear of it. I felt an almost claustrophobic sense of sadness upon reading this; excellent writing but not necessarily enjoyable.

I will ever remember reading “Life Events” by Karolina Waclawiak during the days of the Covid-19 crisis. It may not have been a good choice. I was already sad, depressed, detached, anxious. Ms. Waclawiak took me way deeper down all those paths. But, at the end of the day, I am certain that I am better and stronger for it.

The virus is teaching us a great deal: we are not in control, life is short and can end at any time, life is not fair. Evelyn has been grappling with these issues from an early age. She has now approaching middle age and doesn’t feel that she has anywhere to go, anything to do. No value to herself or others. She makes some choices to double down on her inner life. It may or may not work.

This was my first Waclawiak. “The Invaders” and “How to Get into the Twin Palms” didn’t appeal to me enough to pursue. But “Life Events” is a stunner. Powerful, gut-wrenching, gut-punching. There are insights that constantly jump off the page. Plus, Waclawiak knows her L.A. – not the Beverly Hills glam neighborhoods (though there is a bit of that), but the real L.A. She’s pretty good on the desolate Southwest including my favorite place of all (you’ll have to read to find out).

Highly recommended for those who are endlessly curious about their inner self. Beach read – not so much.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus, & Giroux and NetGalley for the eARC.