I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway from William Morrow, and once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Alexis is a career-driven mother to her 14-year-old daughter Cece. Thankfully, her long-term partner Tommy is an excellent father to CeCe when she can’t be there. The amount of work is keeping her away from major events in CeCe’s life, and it’s creating a chasm between the two. So when they learn that Tommy has terminal cancer, it throws everything up in the air because he is the glue that holds the family together. In a time of great fear, they must learn to put aside their differences and be there for Tommy. So they head down to Destin, Florida, where Tommy wants to live his final days.
Told in alternating viewpoints from Alexis and CeCe, we get a more complete picture of what is going on. There’s a lot more going on in this book than just Tommy’s cancer. While Alexis is a strong woman, her jealous of Tommy’s ex-wife, Monica, is extreme, and it makes her rather unlikeable.
They’ve kept the fact that Tommy used to be married to her a secret from their daughter. When CeCe gets the chance to meet her and work with her, Alexis isn’t having it. Her contempt for someone that’s been out of the picture for so long is too much. It’s clouding her judgment. She overreacts to the things CeCe does, and I understand it’s a very stressful time, but it made me dislike her.
Because of the distance with her mother, CeCe is close to her father. But she’s acting out a bit because she feels like she’s surrounded by secrets. She feels she can’t connect with her mother because she always says the wrong thing and doesn’t care about what she really wants. (through the skewed vision of a teenager, of course.)
When Alexis finally slowed down, when she started listening to what Tommy wanted, and what CeCe wanted and needed, it was when she grew much more tolerable to me. I knew this would be a hard read, but when that communication opened up, that’s when it became such an emotional read for me. The amount of love between Tommy and Alexis poured off the page. The heartbreak, the friendships, the family ties all made this an emotional and touching read.
Read this review on Goodreads and Bookbub.
‘You and Me and Us’ is available for preorder on Amazon for $11.99, it releases April 7th.
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