I loved this book so freaking much. It gave me that zinging feeling that means it imprinted onto my heart and will forever be on my favorites shelf. It’s hard to put the feeling of this book into words (as I find is most often true with books I loved the most). It’s simultaneously outrageously funny and heartbreakingly sad. This book is nuanced and raw and real. It’s about humanity and death and friendships and rethinking everything you thought you knew. The mental health conversations are fantastic. And it’s so very Jewish, which I didn’t know going into it and was thrilled to discover! I loved Wren and her vulnerability so much. I felt seen by this book and I learned from this book and I just loved literally everything about this book.

I really liked the format, the story was very interesting in the beginning and it really helped keep the reading experience interesting. The formatting on the epub was a bit altered tho

I was pleasantly surprised by how gripped I was with this story. I wasn't expecting to connect with the main character as much as I did and I really enjoyed the journey of her growth. The way in which the author revealed details about Stewart kept me wanting to know more. It really is true that you are a different person to everyone and the sum of those characters makes up you. I'll be thinking of this one for awhile.

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing for providing me with a copy of Nora Zelevansky’s novel, Competitive Grieving, in exchange for an honest review.

Wren is devastated by the sudden loss of her childhood friend, Stewart. Wren and Stewart were neighbors, their friendship sealed since infancy, when both of their mother’s were pregnant at the same time. Their friendship endured, as Stewart’s family became wealthy and moved into a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, while Wren’s artsy parents struggled financially, creating a divide between Stewart and Wren’s families.

Stewart further changed, when his acting career began to take-off, soon, he was not simply Wren’s Stewart, but the famous Stewart Beasley. In the days following his death, it is revealed that Stewart left specific instructions to have Wren, along with Stewart’s lawyer (and friend) George, go through his apartment and help with the memorial plans. Wren is further devastated to have to contend with friends from other parts of Stewart’s life, who are also grieving. Wren sees them as vultures, desperate to grab pieces of the friend she loved, and sees their grief as “competitive,” each person trying to prove their connection to Stewart in a twisted game.

Wren is told that Stewart died of a brain aneurysm, but as she digs through his apartment and gains little pieces of information, such as a mysterious heartbroken woman at Stewart’s memorial service, she suspects that this is not the truth.

The premise of Competitive Grieving is strong. It made me reflect on the idea of how we have a special relationship with each person we know and that it is impossible to quantify the depth of those relationships. Just as Wren struggles with her identity of being Stewart’s “best friend,” I struggled with this when my mom passed away. It’s hard to see the grief of others, when you feel that your own grief is superior. Now, far removed from the situation, I have the perspective that grief is simply not like that. As Wren comes to realize, everyone is entitled to their own grieving and no one has a right to judge it. Just as my mom meant different things to different people, things that I have no way of understanding, Stewart had different relationships, different friendships, that did not concern Wren.

Wren is not an easy character. Through much of Competitive Grieving, she is reactionary and wallowing. The story only spans a few weeks, but it is hard to be in Wren’s shoes. It fits with the themes of the story and Wren’s character arc, but it’s not an easy place to be and as such, I did not find Competitive Grieving to be a quick read. I could only handle a few chapters at a time.

I don’t want to give anything away with this review, as the mystery of Stewart is a carefully crafted reveal to maximize an emotional punch. Zelevansky is masterful at handling a delicate topic with grace and humanity. This particular situation is a bit of a trigger for me and reading Competitive Grieving was one of the rare times that this subject made me feel less angry and more compassionate. I appreciate Zelevansky’s ability to change my perspective.

I made it to 40% and couldn't keep going. The promised humor was missing for me. I was just depressed reading this one. I am DNFing without prejudice, but it's just too much of a slog for me to continue. (I'm being forced to put in a star rating, but I don't usually give stars for books I don't finish)

Author Nora Zelevansky says her novels are "delayed coming-of-age stories, inspired by the universal struggle to let go of the past and reimagine oneself again and again, . . .[and] follow characters who resist change as they navigate periods of grudging transition: college graduation, the approach to 30, grief and acceptance." She aptly describes Competitive Grieving as funny, sad, hopeful, true, and universal. The story was inspired by the deaths in 2017 of her uncle and one of her oldest friends shortly after his fortieth birthday. She relates that she was "pregnant and struggling; the world felt like it was in turmoil." And losing her friend "rocked my world on every level, but, also, I witnessed -- and experienced -- grieving in a different way than I had ever expected." She also observed erratic and disturbing behavior by people who, it seemed to her, seemed to need confirmation of their relationship with the decedent.

In Competitive Grieving, Wren is dumbstruck when her friend Gretchen arrives at her apartment -- just as she is about to get comfortable and watch the finale of The Bachelor -- to inform her that Stewart, her long-time friend and confidante, has suddenly died from a brain aneurysm. It explains why he failed to respond to her text messages, and inspires guilt -- their last conversation was another argument about Stewart's belief that she didn't dream big enough, and was squandering her life and potential, settling for less than she was capable of and deserved. She and Stewart had an agreement. They would be each other's "last resort" and, if neither found a partner by the time they were 40, would get married. Wren is strangely unable to cry, just as when her grandfather died. Or fathom that Stewart is gone forever, and she will never have the chance to see him again, no matter how many times she repeats to herself, "Stewart. Gone. Forever. . . . I don't remember life before we met. I can't believe it's true. Just something bursts in his brain, something maybe waiting there since he was born, and that's it? His life is just over? Irreparably? It doesn't make sense."

Stewart's unexpected death sets off an obsession not just with how Stewart died, but death itself. Suddenly, Wren fantasizes about the cause of death and subsequent funeral of every person she encounters, her vivid imagination conjuring up what she deems appropriate manners of death for each person, as well as menus for the funeral luncheons. Her first-person narrative is often both darkly hilarious and heartbreaking. Zelevanky says that when her friend died, she missed him and "wanted to talk to him about what was happening -- but he was gone." So too Wren has an ongoing internal dialogue with Stewart, telling him what is happening and how she feels about it all.

Wren also becomes fixated on understanding exactly what was happening in Stewart's life in the days leading up to his death. She is forced to acknowledge that she and Stewart had not been as close as they once were. She had let him slip further away, into his life in Hollywood that did not include her. She is shocked to learn that not only did he prepare a will, but that it was drafted by George, an attorney and friend that Stewart never mentioned. She is even more surprised to learn from Stewart's grieving, but stalwart mother, Helen, that she and George are to sort through his apartment and decide what should be donated, discarded, or passed on to family members and friends. It is a daunting task, but Wren agrees.

Stewart's friends are notified that they should come to his apartment to peruse his belongings and note any items they would like to keep in order to remember him. It is there that Wren is exposed to a group she refers to as "the vultures," as she watches them callously riffle through Stewart's belongings and claim everything from his clothing to the artwork he collected, his scripts and awards, and the ring given him by his grandfather that Stewart always wore. They include Blair, his overbearing publicist; a would-be fellow actor, Keith; Mallory and Brian, a couple who seem particularly anxious to hoard whatever items they can get their hands on; and Stewart's former girlfriend, Willow ("Bohemian Barbie," according to Wren), who decrees that she wants them all to participate in a ritual designed to help Stewart because she is concerned about his "crossing into the next realm." Listening to and watching their increasingly appalling behavior, Wren wonders why Stewart surrounded himself with people he didn't respect and curses him for leaving her to deal with them.

Zelevansky compellingly takes readers along with Wren on her journey through the stages of grief, as she follows through on her commitment to Helen, discovers things about Stewart that she never knew, and realizes that she made numerous assumptions about him, his life, and his relationships with his other friends. Her initially fractious encounters with George evolve, as she finds herself increasingly attracted to him, but their tenuous relationship is threatened when she refuses to accept that, as an attorney, his ethical obligations to his client do not neatly square with her goals.

Throughout the book, Zelevansky deftly and bravely explores how Wren's profound grief impacts her life. She is in terrible emotional pain, punctuated by regret, and growing confusion and consternation as she learns more details that cause her to question whether she ever really knew Stewart. She is believably repulsed and offended by Stewart's other friends, perceiving their actions as a competition to prove that Stewart was closest to and loved them best. She ponders why it bothers her so much that the man they describe sounds so different from the Stewart she knew and loved. And as she recalls her friendship with Stewart through the years, the truth she discovers is not always palatable or easy to accept.

As the fast-paced, highly entertaining story proceeds, readers will find themselves growing to love Wren, with all of her flaws and insecurities, and cheering for her as she navigates her grief and it manifests in surprising, but highly relatable and enlightening ways. Wren does indeed come of age and grow up, as she comes to terms with the fact that Stewart is indeed gone forever from, as Willow puts it, "this astral plane," but will always be part of her, her memories, and the experiences that have shaped her life. And the particular reasons why Stewart did not share every detail about his life with her as she learns, for the first time, to see herself and his other friends from his perspective.

Competitive Grieving is timely, although Zelevansky wrote it before the pandemic but acknowledges the importance of recognizing "the grief and the loss and the mourning happening in our country and our world right now." The true strength of Competitive Grieving is that Zelevansky has managed to craft a story that is heart-wrenching, focused on the aftermath of an unspeakably sad event. But she expertly balances her subject matter with humor and hopefulness, including romance and witty dialogue that vividly brings her eclectic characters to life. Anyone who has suffered a loss as devastating as Wren's will recognize aspects of themselves in her struggle, relate to her resilience and determination to understand what happened to Stewart and why, and appreciate that Zelevansky imbues her tale with lightness and hopefulness.

"Grief is a taboo topic," Zelevansky observes. But in Competitive Grieving, she compassionately illustrates why it shouldn't be, and that there is not one "correct way to grieve." Rather, mourning is a universal but very individualized experience. Wren learns that it is impossible to know every single detail about someone else's life and feelings, but that does not diminish the richness and value of the relationship. No matter how badly people behave when dealing with loss, grief is not a competitive sport and it should never be reduced to a competition because no one can ever steal a lost loved one -- or your memories of him or her -- from you. Everyone's memories are theirs and theirs alone. As Wren tells Stewart, "There are no doubt infinite incarnations of you. We all knew different versions -- all of them unique and vibrant -- which we'll carry with us as we move about our lives, missing you, but also holding you close."

Given the subject matter one wouldn't except this novel to be funny but it certainly was. It also touches upon serious issues (how well do we know our friends? why wouldn't we confide in our close friends when it comes to our mental health?). There is also a running gag involving the mc inventing causes of deaths and the buffets for their funerals for the people she comes across.

This was a great and utterly capturing story about grief and how it affects feelings we have for someone and how we see our memories with that person. But in this case, Wren has to come to terms with some of the bitterness when a loved one is grieved by others in different ways. How that in itself affects the way she sees and remembers Stewart.

Her childhood friend became an actor and was really loved by so many. But, after his death and upon sorting through his belongings, she finds herself having a really hard time coming to terms with and reconciling the Stewart she knew and the Stewart he was when he died.

This was slightly dark and slightly strange in its way of characterizing some people, but ultimately a beautiful and bold book about some of those base instincts. In loss, we want to hold onto that which we know and love about someone. When that is questioned, it can be really confusing. There were some characters I absolutely hated and some I really loved. There were moments of palpable pain and moments of “OMG, finally! I’m so glad you said that!!” All in all, this was phenomenal and different and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was a little hesitant to pick up a book about grief as I didn't want my heart completely ripped out. Don't get me wrong, this book did have me tearing up and thinking of my loved ones, BUT it also has a lot of moments of joy and comfort. I even enjoyed the bits of romance in here (a rarity for me). This is a must read for this summer!

What a great book! It does the perfect job of conveying the complicated emotions associated with grief and presents it as a dark comedy.

Wren's best friend since childhood, Stewart has died and she is in mourning. He was a TV star on a very successful show, so many others around the country are devastated too, whether they were casual friends or complete strangers. Even weirder, Stewart's mother, who she's never been close with, has tasked Wren with going through his belongings. Wren understandably feels possessive over her friend's death, but the further she gets in the process of organizing everything, the more she realizes that she may not have known the real Stewart after all.

This book reads exactly like we're in the brain of someone going through acute grief. It's that feeling of sorrow and nausea, but in the next moment laughing and feeling guilt. It's reaching for your phone to talk to someone, only to realize your first instinct is to call the deceased. Reading through the narrator's experience was cathartic, in a way.

I loved the way that this book brought culture into the funeral process! Many of the characters were Jewish and it was so interesting to get to learn more about their traditions around death. Other cultures and regions were brought up to like Puerto Rico, Brazil, the American South, and the Middle East to name a few.

One of my favorite parts about this book was the group of side characters christened the "vultures." They were over-the-top, stereotypical, and so terrible that it became funny to me. As awful as they were, I found myself looking forward to more scenes with them.

The ending was super touching and I even straight up put my hand on my heart a few times, it was so good. It's entirely too easy to be comparative when it comes to grieving or to judge how someone mourns because it's different than how we did it. This book is fantastic.

Heads up: Death, obvs and suicide

Wren and Stewart have been best friends since before birth, destined to always be in each other's lives. It wasn't always easy -- they were two completely different people with widely different views of the world -- but through everything they've managed to stay close friends even if they aren't as close as they used to be. So it comes as quite of a shock to Wren when she finds out Stewart was found dead in his apartment due to a brain aneurysm. While trying to process her own grief and the loss of her best friend, Wren can't help but notice the competitive grieving that seems to be happening all around her. Having been a semi-popular actor, all sorts of people come out of the "woodwork" to grieve for Stewart: many people Wren has never met before or has never heard Stewart speak of, but also quite a few who claim to be close friends with Stewart when Wren knows they weren't. It's like everyone wants to say they knew Stewart better than anyone, and it's driving Wren to madness. No one could have known Stewart like she did... Could they? As Wren comes to terms with Stewart's absence from her life, she realizes that maybe she didn't know Stewart as well as she thought she did. Can we every truly know someone, or do we all play our own parts in everyone else's lives?

Thoughts: Not going to lie, the beginning of the book was painful! Not because of Stewart's death, but because of the annoyingly bizarre cast of characters Wren introduces us to at his funeral. "Competitive grieving" is the perfect term -- everyone seems to be trying to win the title of "most in pain" and "saddest friend", much to Wren's frustration. Honestly, I thought she handled it better than I would have -- I very likely would have lost my poo from the first, "What ever will I do without him?!" I found Wren to be a very likable and realistic character, and her habit of guessing other people's manner of death and funeral plans was totally on-point and quite funny at times. George was an interesting side character who turns into a little something more, and I liked his sense of humor and how he was bluntly honest yet still sweet and flirty with Wren, and I really enjoyed their characters' interactions and storyline. I also liked how complicated of a character Stewart was -- he wasn't just her best friend, he had his own layers that we as readers got to know throughout the course of the book. By the end, I found myself mourning his death right along with Wren and George. Overall, I liked this book a lot, and I found the story to be refreshing and unique. Competitive Grieving not only shows how differently people process grief but is also how we can learn more about ourselves and how we fit into certain roles with those around us. Definitely would recommend, especially for anyone who likes sarcasm and/or who appreciate "tough topics".

**Thank you, NetGalley and publishers, for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.**

I received this book from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

Competitive Grieving by Nora Zelevansky is a funny contemporary novel that deals with a very unfunny topic.

Wren is a thirty-something grant writer for an international infrastructure NGO (Operation Sewage) whose dreams of being an investigative journalist petered out when she realized she needed a steady salary with benefits. She’s content with her life, which includes a small circle of good friends, a cat, an obsession with The Bachelor, a disappointing string of boyfriends, and a lifelong best-friendship with a successful TV star: Stewart Beasley. Although they see each other infrequently, and bicker frequently, the friendship (which began from birth) is solid. They are each other’s mainstays.

However, the novel opens with Wren receiving word of Stewart’s sudden unexpected death.

Wren is in shock. She stumbles through the next few days, including the funeral, unable to cry. She finds herself helplessly trying to comfort people who she believes cannot be as devastated as she is. She copes by imagining funeral details for people she comes across, friends and strangers. (These imaginary funerals are bitingly funny.) However, Wren grows increasingly infuriated by the hangers-on, who claim a closer friendship to him than they have, who think they know Stewart better than she does. (Didn’t she and Stewart used to mock these people?)

Wren has always been intimidated by Stewart’s mother, so is surprised when the mother asks her to clean out Stewart’s apartment and sort through his belongings. To do this, she has to work with Stewart’s lawyer friend, George. (The one bright spot. George is a good guy.) If the task was not painful enough, the apartment is descended upon by those same, awful hangers-on, all claiming they are helping when, in fact, Wren sees them as simply trying to get a hold of Stewart’s stuff. As well as asserting their claims to close friendship with the deceased.

Wren’s defense is snark. She’s hurting and it makes her mean-spirited. Most of the time, though, she keeps her meanness in her head, or speaks it only to George, whose sense of humor matches hers. He doesn’t have the history with Stewart and the others so is able, at first, to cut them more slack.

It’s all a bit overwhelming for Wren. The more she digs into Stewart’s life, the less she recognizes him. She starts wondering if she didn’t know her best friend well at all.

The novel balances humor and sorrow, making for a bittersweet read, as Wren’s searching clarifies not only Stewart’s life, but her own.

I was nervous going into this book, thinking it would be a gut wrenching look at grief. However, it is equal parts comedy, rom-com and a touching examination of how we grieve a lost loved one. Grieving can be quite competitive: who knew the deceased better, who loved them more, who had the closest relationship. There are always hurt feelings, bruised egos and it rarely brings out the best in people, especially when items of value are left behind.

I loved how the chapters alternated between the present day activity and the main character, Wren, talking, sometimes writing, to her best friend Stuart who died unexpectedly. She questions what she knew about him and their relationship. The story is witty, sarcastic, laugh out loud funny, but bittersweet and moving. I laughed, cried and really enjoyed this book!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Listen to full episodes at: https://bookclubbed.buzzsprout.com/

I am a layperson in the realm of romance. Or, to rephrase that, a layperson in the realm of romance fiction (best to not indict my personal life in a book review). The first, true “romance genre” book I read was 50 Shades, which is a bit like preparing for a bakery tasting by getting smashed in the face with a pie.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect in this book—as far as tropes, pacing, or sentence-level writing went--so I did my best to stay open-minded. I did choose this one because it promised humor. The humor of the book, in my opinion, fell terribly flat, relying on one-dimensional characters such as the “white hippie girl with sage” and “failed poon hound rocker” and featuring jokes that could have been found on Twitter in 2007. It’s fine to use these caricatures to skewer types of people, but nothing found in here is fresh or clever in that regard.

Everything else, I thought, was quite strong, and it even managed to light a little candle of love in the cold cavern of my heart.

The lead characters were strong, messy, and flawed, probing and reflecting throughout the book. Our protagonist gains depth as the narrative unfolds and manages to mature in an authentic and touching manner. Stewart has the greatest character change, even though the inciting action is his death, with the unraveling of his personality as people share stories of him. These two have a dynamic friendship, not an easy thing to pull off when the book is also largely a meditation on death and loss.

For a book that traffics in romance tropes, both ironically and un-ironically, there is very little romance, passion, lust, or even sex in the first half of the novel. However, Zelevansky integrates romance into the second half without it competing, tonally, with the grief that is the backbone of this story. I ended up rooting for the romantic kinship to work out, even if I resisted it at first. It was impressive to me that the gentleman in question won her over just as he won the reader over.

I’m not a hopeless romantic yet, but with a few more books like this, I might just get there.

I have been going back and forth with how I feel about this book. It’s extremely, extremely relatable in many ways. It’s full of contradictions, which is an accurate portrayal of grief. It’s heavy and light and no one does it right but it’s done as well as can be. There were some deep nuggets of wisdom and heart tucked in here but I wanted more. I wanted more of Wren “talking” with Stewart and going through her own feelings. However, I do completely understand and get that when someone dies, there are so many things to do and get together and other people to see and deal with, that it can be a while. It just wasn’t the depth I wanted and the vultures were so painfully irritating, which I guess gave the book is lighthearted, humorous spin but it missed the mark for me.

I’ve always been a sucker for beautiful, bold covers, and when the book’s content and writing is just as big and beautiful, the author can connect with me on another level. On a different note, Wren, the main character, is my spirit animal.

Part romantic comedy, part devastating loss, part finding yourself, Competitive Grieving realistically emulates life as we all know it, with incredibly real emotions, where no one person feels or handles grief the same way.

Some people are shit. Some people are beautiful. But most people are a mixture of the two, and Competitive Grieving doesn’t hesitate to make you realize there’s more to grief than outward appearance. There’s more to people than what they show you on any given day.

Are you the person who can’t cry when something devastating happens? Are you the one who can’t stop crying? Do you immediately become the spokesperson and take control? Do you judge everyone around you for their grief, when you know that no one knows this person better than you?

Ultimately, we’re all in this world, trying to understand life and love and those around us, that may not be around us indefinitely. I could actually (have actually) seen myself doing, saying, living some of these moments with the characters, and to me, that makes an amazing piece of art.

COMPETITIVE GRIEVING may wear its sadness on its sleeve, but it holds a huge, messy, poignant, complicated love story close to its vest. We follow thirty-six-year-old Wren as she contends with the recent, sudden death of Stewart, her best friend since childhood and a rising star in television. Alongside her is George, Stu's lawyer and friend, as well as "the vultures" -- Stu's friends from LA. The group of big, clashing personalities is forced together in Stewart's NYC apartment while Wren tries to fulfill the task bequeathed her in Stu's will: sort through his earthly belongings, and allow those in the inner circle to take mementos. Wren detests the performative grief she sees all around her, and struggles to understand how the boy she grew up with could/would have surrounded himself with such awful people. Worse, Wren discovers there's quite a lot she didn't know about Stewart -- and the distance between who she thought he was and who he became before his death seems as insurmountable as the chasm between life and death.

Ultimately, Stewart's death forces Wren to face the daunting prospect of living her own life. In this way, COMPETITIVE GRIEVING is a delayed coming-of-age story (what do we call an awakening that happens after adolescence but before midlife?); it's not that Wren needs to "grow up" per se, but rather that she needs to grow out -- out of her comfort zone, her assumptions, her safety net. In classic narrative terms, we find Wren in her Dark Night of the Soul straightaway, and the novel follows her on the long path toward dawn.

There's an unexpectedly delicious romance in this novel, made especially compelling by the wry humor shared between the love interests. Less unexpected but still particularly compelling is the book's meditation on depression, which is as hard to process as it is authentic. Zelevansky manages difficult subjects with grace and nuance, making space for the full range of emotions both Wren and readers experience. Writing about deeply-felt loss -- and the chaotic, messy, maelstrom of feeling that goes along with it -- can so easily tilt into sentimentality, but Zelevansky resists the Siren call to tug on heartstrings. If you read the Acknowledgements, you'll understand why.

Content warning: depression, suicide, death

Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A very light novel about a heavy subject. This novel sits somewhere between beach read and literary fiction. What worked best was the portrayal of the main characters relationship with her best friend throughout the many years they had known each other. It seemed a realistic take on how relationships grow and change as well as how our memories and understanding of events evolve. The resolution seemed a little too pat and obvious but is made up for by how we get there. The characters are well drawn and even those that start simplistic are dimensionalized by the end.

I was genuinely surprised by this book. On reading the description before requesting the book, it seemed like more of a comedy/chick-lit type of book, and at the time of the request that was what I had been hoping for. By the time I managed to get to it, it wasn't my mood anymore. Thank goodness Competitive Grieving wasn't exactly those two things.
In Competitive Grieving, Nora Zelevansky craftily subverts both of those categories in ways that feel at once honest and (through showing, not telling) real... because grieving isn't linear. Death isn't a subject that most people are comfortable talking about, and individuals all handle it differently. The book is still definitely funny and tackles this difficult subject with grace and humility through the growth and understanding of our protagonist Wren, as she navigates the impossible-to-believe death of her best friend .
The ending was what brought my score up to four stars, where it had been a steady three throughout the reading. Earnest and heartfelt, I really enjoyed this book a lot. I will definitely be recommending it to many of patrons when it comes out in a few months.

When I first started reading the novel, I didn't get too far because it felt too slapsticky, too Hollywood. Weeks later, I decided to give it another try. Even though the book implies that it's about grieving and loss, in many ways it isn't, which is odd after reading the author's message at the end of the novel and having endured a few recent deaths. Maybe this book was more of a cathartic project for the author, a way to resolve and reflect on those deaths in a way that would move her forward.

The novel is about a young B-list actor who dies and how friends (if I were using the style of the author, I'd write "friends" in quotes) gather to go through his belongings. Our main character, Wren, his best friend since childhood, has a tendency to look at people, strangers, those she knows, and planning their funerals in her head, an obsession of sorts, and when she is faced with actually helping plan a funeral, she sees the friends of Stewart, the dead actor, as vultures wanting his goods to sell on Ebay, as people who are outdoing each other with showing their grief, competing to say who was the closest friend.

None of the characters come across as likeable, except for our brief encounter with a former high school friend who had gone to counseling with Stewart as teens. But she doesn't have a large role in the novel, except for dropping the hints that Stewart was depressed, which other people later reveal also, and it seems that Wren, for whatever reason, she does seem rather pre-occupied with herself, never notices.

The intended audience for this novel is probably young woman who like romance and humor, which may be why the novel didn't work for me. Everyone was catty, selfish, and oblivious. The plot was rather predictable, but I don't want to provide spoilers, but when I reached the end of the novel, I rather wished the novel started there, after the funeral, and then we may have had a novel with some depth.