This book has breathed life into my soul! It is that.damn.good. I’m turning 42 in June and have felt so disconnected from the person I was in my youth. Not just physical changes; grey roots, wrinkled eyes, and stiffer joints, but also spiritually. I barely recognize the girl who was surrounded by her best friends. She used to run for fun, lived off gummy strawberries and Diet Coke, fell asleep listening to music every night, was adventurous and had hobbies. She laughed all the time.
But then here comes @mrstevenrowley with his powerhouse of a novel and says: Ma’am, AGING IS A GIFT. 🎤🫳

The Celebrants is about a group of college friends and roommates that spans from 1995 to the present. When a member of their groups dies unexpectedly right at graduation they make a pact to leave nothing unsaid while they were still living. Each member, when faced with a life crisis, could evoke the pact and they would gather to throw a living funeral for each other to remind them they are loved. The novel flashes between the present and each member’s funeral over several decades. The friends experience growing pains, career implosions, marriages, divorces, childbirth, parental loss, cancer, and loss. Each section is full of wit, warmth, and reflection. I laughed and cried my way to the end and grieved when it was over.

Rowley’s book made me realize I might have put too much distance between that versionof me in the past and the woman I am today. Then he gives hope: “But we are still capable of amazing things, and we are not so old that past versions of ourselves are long gone. There is fire in us still. And there will be right up until the end. Nothing is over until it is.” And in the words of main character Jordy “I want to celebrate until it is over.”

Read if you like:
🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ Rep
👯‍♀️ Found Family/Long-term friend groups
☠️ Funerals for the living
⏳ Past and Present Timelines

This book moves from past to present and introduces us to a group of friends that truly are a wonderful found family. However, one member is missing and left a hole so they decide to do living funerals for each other to ensure that no one else is lost without knowing how they each felt.

This is a heartfelt book with witty and smart writing, truly this book is so well written!

The pacing is a bit slow, but the story makes the pacing okay in my opinion.

Thank you so much to the publisher GP Putnam Sons for my arc in exchange for my review!

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Publishing, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Fans of The Guncle will be excited to read Steven Rowley’s new book. The author again tackles difficult issues with respect and some humor.

The five main characters, Jordan, Jordy, Craig, Naomi, and Marielle, have been friends for 30 years. They all met in college at Berkeley. There was a sixth friend, Alec, who died just before graduation.

The five friends make a pact at Alec’s funeral that will keep them together. Any one of them can use the pact to gather together for a “funeral” when they are hurting and need to be reminded how important they are to one another.

This is The Big Chill for 2023. The story takes the reader from 1995-2023 as the friends celebrate the meaningful people in their lives. There are many life lessons in this book.

“Leave nothing left unsaid.”
“ Do as many things as you can to remind yourself you’re alive.”

As a reader, don't ever think you're going to go into a Steven Rowley book without getting all the feels. There are highs, and there are lows, and there is everything in between, but I'm there for all of it. The Celebrants made me want to call all my old friends, to reconnect, to remember what made us who we are. I was also lucky enough to have an early audio copy, thanks to PRH Audio, and I'm glad that Steven Rowley made the decision to self-narrate, because I can't imagine anyone else doing the book justice the way he did,

Thanks so much for the opportunity to review!

THE CELEBRANTS is a big hug of a book and you’ll definitely be in your feels as you read, so that’s your emotional warning. While the title claims for celebration, it’s very much a celebration of life and death. A group of friends unexpectedly lose a friend in college and they vow to throw each other a funeral, but while they’re all still alive. The reason? The wanted to make sure nothing goes unsaid and to ensure they know how much each person means.

UGH, MY HEART.

Told in alternating timelines and multiple POVs, we learn how this group became friends, what they became as adults, and how they drifted yet rekindled their pact. It’s a fun and witty novel that pulls at your heartstrings perfectly. Between the humor, the lessons you learn, as well as the personalities and dynamics between each friend, you’ll wish you were in this friend group.

As fun and lovable as it is, the story is of course very sad, mainly because you know how the book will end. While you know the ending, it's the journey getting there that makes it all worth it. Just like life, you know there’s an end, but it’s about the road you travel and what you do on said road to get to that ending.

Big thank you to Netgalley for the ARC as well as @PRHAudio for the audiobook #sponsored #PRHAudioPartner

Five friends, Jordy, Jordan, Craig, Marielle, and Naomi, made a pact to mourn each other's endings and celebrate the new beginnings with one another by throwing a living funeral.

I really loved the idea of a living funeral surrounded by loved ones that convince you that life is worth living when life throws a curve ball.

I love Steven Rowley's books, and this one's no exception, though I wished there was a little more background on each of the characters in the group. I just didn't feel as connected to any of them as his characters in previous books. Regardless, this was a great yearly dose of Rowley's signature heart.

I enjoyed the audio, which was expertly narrated by the author himself.

🩶BOOK REVIEW🩶

The Celebrants - Steven Rowley
✨Thanks for the free audiobook @prhaudio! #PRHAudioPartner ✨
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

“A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.”

Absolutely LOVE Steven Rowley so I knew this one would be no exception! It follows college friends, who after the unexpected death of one in their group at 22, make a pact to have a “living funeral” for one another. To be reminded in life, not after, how much you mean to the ones around you. It is an absolutely beautiful idea and I loved getting to know the challenges, secrets and triumphs of the remaining 5 group members.

This one manages to be heart warming, tender, funny and witty without any cringe. It was a fantastic reminder to let the people in my own life know how important they are to me! Rowley’s own narration is spot on - just as it was in The Guncle - and brings so much to this audiobook. I was going between the physical and audio formats at first but switched strictly to audio shortly in just for the narration.

Recommend if you like:
🩶 Character driven
🩶 Messy, real characters
🩶 Celebrating life and friends
🩶 Tough topics handled with wit and humor

✨Publish date: May 30,2023

Thanks to @netgalley and @putnambooks for my ARC and @prhaudio for the ALC.

🩶Do you have any traditions with your friends? Reunions, annual outings?

#stevenrowley #thecelebrants #theguncle #audiobook #audiobookreview #bookreview #bookrecommendations #lgbtqreads #livingfuneral #friendshipgoals #booksbooksbooks #goodreads #bookchallenge #bookcharacters #netgalleyreads #bestaudiobooks

Naomi, Jordy, Jordan, Marielle and Craig made a pact in college after the sixth member of their group, Alec, passed away unexpectedly. They can enact the pact whenever they need to, and everyone will gather for the individuals fake funeral, leaving nothing left unsaid.

This story was unique. It takes place over 30 years, starting when the group are graduating college, up until they are in their late 40s. Each member calls for the pact during a different life crisis. This story is heavily character driven. I enjoyed getting to know the characters in such depth and detail, but it became a little long at times, and I felt there wasn’t enough plot to balance out the character building. I loved this author’s first book, so I definitely will keep reading what he puts out, this one just fell short for me with a slow moving story.

I had high expectations after loving The Guncle but it fell a bit short for me. The premise was great but I found most of the characters dull and annoying. There were parts that I saw the style from Rowley that I loved before, and that kept me going. I think those that like unlikeable character driven novels will love this more than I did.

The Celebrants was such a poignant and beautiful novel. It’s a tribute to friendships, love, and the families we find along the way. The tone of the book is somber, but ultimately it’s a hopeful novel.

The past/present format of the book was unique and each chapter focused on a different character, with a shorter chapter about one couple in between. This made for some very lengthy chapters, but I think it worked well to reveal the story bit by bit. The author wove everything together so wonderfully. Because of the number of characters, I didn’t feel like each character was ever fully fleshed out, but I don’t think that was the point of the novel. It’s about the friendships that shape us, that grow and change with us, that stay with us no matter how brief. The everyday little moments and the big ones that make us feel seen, heard, and loved. The end of the novel was bittersweet (I cried!), but it also reminds us all to leave nothing left unsaid to those we love.

The book is narrated by the author and he truly does such an incredible job! His voice is so expressive and his comedic timing is perfection. I definitely recommend enjoying this one on audiobook.

Audiobook Review
Overall 4.5 stars
Performance 5 stars
Story 4 stars

CW: drug overdose, death of loved ones, airplane crash, cancer, HIV diagnosis, grief, cheating ex

*I voluntarily read and listened to a review copy of this book*

Thanks to Netgalley & Penguin for the E-ARC! I loved this book! I loved the characters and the setting. I felt like I was reading The Big Chill. Definitely recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley, author Steven Rowley, and Penguin Group Putnam for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I LOVED this. Literary fiction about the love of friends that makes you think about mortality and the purpose of life is probably my favorite book type of all time, and this was SUCH a beautiful example. Was it a bit cheesy at times? Perhaps. However, I don't even care because it was so beautifully done! This book gave me all the emotions, as I was laughing with joy and tearing up all throughout. Each of the characters are so unique and yet their friendship works, despite all the differences and years apart. I was able to relate to all of their feelings and challenges in various ways, and it made me want to pull all of my friends together to have living funerals. Life is so short and yet there is so much goodness that surrounds us at all points; sometimes, all it takes is the people who know and love us best to remind us of that fact. Rowley has a gorgeous writing style and knows how to tell a story. I loved how it was woven together, and I look forward to checking out his other works now. This is a book that will stick with me for a while and that I know I will recommend to lots.

The Celebrants is an emotional and character-driven story about friendship, loss, and life. When a group of college friends lose someone in their group, they make a pact to always be there for each other and to hold "living funerals." It is an interesting premise and this book will make you laugh and make you cry. It will also make you stop and think.

Steven Rowley instantly captured my attention with his witty and sweet-natured The Guncle. The Celebrants, his follow-up book, is a more grown up outing that follows a group of friends who have been close for twenty years - The Big Chill, but with a more present tragedy. And I definitely detected a whiff of St. Elmo’s Fire. The book is very engaging and provides another lovely series of character portraits but didn’t grab me as hard as The Guncle.

A group of five friends gathers in Big Sur, California, at a beach house called Sur La Vie. It might be five years between gatherings, but they will all arrive. It’s a matter of support – each of them is going through it in their own way – and serves as a strengthening measure to their twenty-eight-year-old friendship. Whenever any of them needs it, they call the others together for a mock-funeral and review the good and important things in their lives. They do this in memory of their missing sixth member, spacy stoner Alec, who passed away of an apparent overdose when they were in college together. The idea is to encourage each other to keep living.

The fivesome are Jordan Vargas, an emigrée and public relations executive who faces down cancer head-on; Jordan – Jordy - Tosic is Jordan’s husband, a swimmer and world traveler – known as “the Jordans” by their friends; Naomi Ito, a lighthearted and heavy-drinking music label executive; Craig Scheffler, a distant and stuffy gallerist whose career hits the skids when he’s charged with art fraud and whose old-man ways earns him the nickname “nana” from the group; and animal-loving sanctuary owner Marielle Holland, Alec’s girlfriend, whose political career stalls when she takes time off to be a mom.

Every once in a while, someone in the group invokes the pact; Marielle when her infidelity-laden seventeen-year-old marriage implodes, leaving her a single mother to Mia; Naomi, when both of her parents die in a plane crash, leading the entire group to try to help her get over the incident by learning to fly a plane; Craig, when the aforementioned art fraud case happens and the gang becomes determined to help him beat the charges. When Jordan finally invokes it, it’s for a very serious reason. But friendship, the humor and the love endures.

Sometimes the sap overcomes The Celebrants’ best instincts. Its one-liners can be a little too cutesy, its repartée a little too snippy. Sometimes you can feel Rowley dollying in for the big tear or the big laugh. Some running jokes grate (Jordan’s tendency to declare something “all too (a famous nineties woman with the first name Courtney – Cox, Thorne-Smith etc.)” becomes ANNOYING after the first few times it happens) and the conceit of naming two of his characters Jordan is irritating. But the book is too beautiful to be ignored. It feels cinematic in the best and worst of ways.

There are multiple romances in The Celebrants – one a frustrated love story between Marielle and Craig, the other the tender connection between the Jordans – and both function beautifully but come in as secondary factors to the group bond, as they should.

There are big sentimental nudges, warm romantic feelings, and the sense that life ebbs and flows with the tiniest of nudges. So it is in fiction and so it is in life. I can’t rave about this book as I did over The Guncle, but The Celebrants is still a good – if more intense – time.

I loved Steven Rowley’s The Guncle so much that as soon as I saw an opportunity to get an advance copy of The Celebrants, I jumped on it! This book did not disappoint.

The Celebrants is a character-driven story of five friends and their lifelong quest to be there for each other. After the death of their friend Alec, just before graduating from Berkeley, the group makes a pact to give each member a “funeral” while they’re still living, so they will know how loved they are and nothing will be left unsaid.

The others in the group—Naomi, Marielle, Craig, Jordan, and Jordy—go their separate ways, but return to each other whenever one of them needs it. We see each friend as they face life’s challenges over the years, and we see what drives them to invoke the pact and reunite with their friends.

This book spans decades in the lives of these characters, but it focuses mainly on husbands Jordan and Jordy (known collectively as “the Jordans”). This time, it’s Jordan who has invoked the pact, and the group gathers once again to celebrate one of their own, to confront their grief, and to support each other.

I loved this book for its intimate portrayal of the human experience. These five friends go through the same losses and grief that we all do. They fall in love. They fall out of love. They make mistakes and they suffer the consequences. They feel betrayal, anger, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, and hope. This book is about the type of family that a person can choose to create for themselves. And it shows us that there is no one right way to live.

Sensitive readers should know that this book contains adult language, references to drug and alcohol use, suicide and death, and sexual content.

4.5 stars. Let me start with Steven Rowley, in general. I'm a huge fan of his work. I've read all of his books and really liked them all. He is just a stellar storyteller. I think The Guncle may be my personal favorite but this one & Lily and the Octopus are a close second (it's a tie). And the Editor was outstanding although my least favorite of his books. Even my least favorite of his books was a GREAT read. At this point, he's an auto-buy author for me. His books are very different but they are all great. This one, The Celebrants, is no exception. It's probably the most like Lily and the Octopus, in my opinion. It's not The Guncle, part 2. If you want another The Guncle, this is not it. This is a completely different but completely outstanding novel. This is a character-driven novel about friendship, grief, found family, and so much more. I don't want to go into much detail about this one because one of the things I loved most was the unfolding of this story - of these people, of these relationships. I think that unfolding was superbly done and you'd be missing some of the essence of this book to know too many details going on. There is some darkness here BUT Rowley excels at adding some warmth and levity despite the darkness which gives the entire novel a bit of needed balance. I love that Steven Rowley always seems to surprise me with how diverse his stories are and yet how full of love and warmth they are. They are just wonderful reads. I definitely recommend this one but please know that it's a very different book than The Guncle so manage your expectations accordingly! Honestly, I really don't think you can go wrong with ANY of Steven Rowley's work!

When a member of their close knit college group dies shortly before graduation, five friends decide to gather for “living funerals” to be there for each other. The goal is to leave nothing unsaid and no feelings unfelt.

I knew I was in for loads of emotions going into this book, but I was left feeling annoyed with pretty much every character and their privilege. Even with this pact, I had a hard time believing these people would stay friends for 25 years. They even say they hardly talk/see each other in between their funerary obligations, so how can they offer insight and comfort when called upon to honor one of them?

CW/TW: death of a loved one, terminal illness, cancer, divorce, incarceration, death of parents, plane crash, AIDS, grief

Emotional and smart definitely sums up a Steven Rowley book. The Celebrants is no exception. You've got a diverse, elective group of college friends who, after the unexpected death of one in their group, make a pact to get together for a "living funeral" for each of them so that nothing is left unsaid while they are alive rather than having regrets.

I recommend The Guncle to almost everyone. This was totally solid and I really enjoyed it, but I don't think it will get quite that amount of mass love. That said, if you go in with the right expectations, you'll enjoy it.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy of this book.

This is a story of friendship that has lasted decades, cemented in stone when one of their best friends died by suicide shortly before college graduation. Never wanting to face the loss of each other or doubts of how much they mean to one another happen again, the friends make a pact.

Whenever any of them is at their lowest, they will call for a living funeral. One that will allow them to see how long they will be missed. It’s been 5 years since the last funeral, and now Jordan has a secret that might change everything.

Steven Rowley writes with wit and humor as we see the lowest point in each character’s life when the previous funerals are reflected on. But he really shines, in the final chapters when these friends help Jordan and his partner grieve. It’s a lovely book about grief and friendship.

The Celebrants by Stephen Rowley is a wonderful ode to lifelong friendships with a twist. When Alex, one of the original members of the group of six friends from Berkeley, dies young the rest of them form a pact. Instead of having to wait until you are dead to hear all the nice things friends say about you – you can call the group together when you need it for your living “funeral”.

Various members have called one for different reasons – Marielle needed one after her divorce, Naomi wanted one after her parents died and all I will say about Craig is his happened after some criminal charges. Now Jordan has a big secret to share so will he call his “funeral” or will his husband Jordy call it for him?

I literally loved this book and all the characters and I laughed and cried with them. This book has been mentioned as the “Big Chill” of today and I heartily agree. Rowley is a writer that I will always read!