The Story Of Us

Product Information

Emma Marshall is a twenty seven year old woman who was just embarking on a successful career when she decided she needed to go home to help her Dad take care of her ill mother. After coming home and reuniting with her two best friends, she also rekindled her romance with her childhood sweetheart, Richard. They soon became engaged and the wedding is just two weeks away. It’s the night of the bachelorette party as I would call it or ‘hen’ party as she calls it. A tragic event that night changes the entire course of Emma’s life. A tragedy that only two of the three best friends would walk away from. I liked that I had absolutely no idea where the story would go, I like to be surprised and I really was, I didn’t expect any of what I read, and it was moving and heartbreaking and wonderful all at the same time. I felt so many emotions reading this book, and Dani Atkins is such a talented writer to be able to stir up and bring out all of these feelings in her characters and her readers too. The Story Of Us is so BEAUTIFULLY written, wow. You have to relax and just go with this new take on the omniscient narrator, who disappears at many stages of the story, but does return again and again, as a fertilized egg, a fetus and finally as a newborn. You'll finally forgive its bizarre nature and even begin to love its viewpoint when it expresses itself: I wanted so badly to take my first breath, to be photographed, fawned over. To have my cheeks pinched. To be punished for doing things I wasn’t supposed to do, touching things I wasn’t supposed to touch. To be measured against a wall, year after year. To grow taller. To be cheered on every time I learned something new. I wanted that. Could you blame me? I would recommend The Story of Us, I would warn that there is some triggering content. Read with care. Told from such a unique perspective - starting from an unfertilized egg, moving to a fetus, and finally to a newborn - which definitely took some getting used to. However, it was unlike anything else I've ever read and offered such an interesting point of view. There's no denying the author's creativity and talent with emotionally charged writing, and her characters have so much depth and growth.

The Story of Us is an emotional rollercoaster filled with struggles and triumphs. Most importantly it's a story of mothers, of sacrifice, of found family, of community, and unlikely friendship. I could definitely see this book turned into a stage production, and I cannot wait to see what Catherine Hernandez delivers next. Written from the perspective of an infant, an unborn child, and even an unfertilized egg (a Maybe Baby) - waiting for their own life to unfold from the moment of their mother's conception until after their birth.. This was one of the most uniquely narrated books I've ever read.Her most recent protagonist goes by many names: Mary Grace, Ma, MG, Emmie, Emma, Jane, Polly. And it takes some time for her to be grounded in who she is. Is she a wife? A nanny? A caregiver? A friend? A mother? She is what she does. She finds her identity in her actions. This story is her finding herself in others, in community. I really need to learn that when I start a Dani Atkins book I don't want to stop reading it until I've reached the end. This wasn't perfect, I guessed several of the plot twists, though the end of The Ending really took me by surprise - the author played a blinder with that one and I'm so very glad that I didn't skip to the end on those occasions when I was rather tempted to.

There is something in the way Ms. Dani Atkins tells her stories that just captivates me that I couldn’t stop reading. I remember feeling the same with the first book of her I’ve read, Then and Always. It’s easy to read, emotional, quite predictable at times, at several places quite funny, and yes, very addictive. En toen kwam dat laatste hoofdstuk. Heel mooi en ontroerend. En ik dacht op de ena-laatste bladzijde 'oh en de schrijfster heeft dit keer mijn hart in mijn lijf laten zitten. Mooi verhaal, maar ik had nog wel zo een denderend einde verwacht, jammer eigenlijk.' Helaas is het niet allemaal rozengeur en manenschijn, want het plot van het boek is helaas voorspelbaar, alhoewel Atkins toch goed haar best heeft de gedaan hier verandering in te brengen. Ze sluimert af en toe een vaagheid door het verhaal heen om de lezer op het verkeerde been te zetten. Niet iedereen zal hiervan houden, maar ik geef toe dat ik het heerlijk vond :-). The three people whom I trusted more than anyone else in the world had each betrayed me, in one way or another, and the bitter taste of deceit seared my throat whenever I thought about it.” What I can promise you is this: there are Maybe Babies inside of me now, witnessing you, the light of you, and there are Maybe Babies inside of them that will keep your legacy alive well after your last breath."Based on what I see around me, in person and online, it seems like my society is actually more like this: The Story of Us is a little similar to her first book in the sense that the heroine is looking at a possibility of two different destinies. But here, it’s Emma’s potential fate with two great guys which of course makes it a very difficult choice for Emma because one guy shares the majority of her past including her family’s and friends’ affection and the other shares her second chance at life when he saved her from a fatal car accident with two of her best friends.

Of course I couldn't wait to see what she would write next and as soon as publisher Head of Zeus released the details for The Story of Us I was anticipating its release. Would this novel be just as heart-breaking, though-provoking and memorable as Atkins' first? When MG arrives in Toronto, she must endure a series of privileged employers and their children. One day she comes across an ad for a Personal Support Worker, and begins caring for Liz, an elderly patients living with Alzheimer's disease. It's her time with Liz that will challenge MG's conservative beliefs, and lead to the most unlikely of friendships. Once MG starts working for Liz, a beautiful story starts to unfold. One in which a very conservative MG, forced to challenge her own beliefs, finds compassion and friendship from the people she least expected. The cast of characters in this book were just wonderful - from MG (a hero in her own sense), to Liz (an activist with an incredibly interesting past), to Ash (probably my favourite of them all) - and had me not wanting this book to end. I had some real belly laughs in this although there were moments I was gulping, hard, so I didn't snivel at work !Although I’d owned this book for a while, I had no plans to read it until my GR friend, Alan, claimed it was his “favourite Canadian read of 2023”. Well, I read a lot of CanLit and I’d just declared Michelle Porter’s A Grandmother Begins the Story to be my favourite read of 2023—Canadian or otherwise! So I had to read The Story of Us for myself… This book made me both cherish and resent humanity a little more, in the true Catherine Hernandez fashion. I raged, I wept, I was swept away in waves of gratitude and awe in how frightening and beautiful this little life of ours can be.