Joy for Beginners
Having survived a life-threatening illness, Kate celebrates by gathering with six close friends. At an intimate outdoor dinner on a warm September evening, the women challenge Kate to start her new lease on life by going white-water rafting down the Grand Canyon with her daughter. But Kate is reluctant to take the risk.
That is, until her friend Marion proposes a pact: if Kate will face the rapids, each woman will do one thing in the next year that scares her. Kate agrees, with one provision--she didn't get to choose her challenge, so she gets to choose theirs. Whether it's learning to let go of the past or getting a tattoo, each woman's story interweaves with the others, forming a seamless portrait of the power of female friendships.
"Joy for Beginners takes us on the emotional journeys of seven women seeking to transform their lives, and proves that sometimes what we really need to inspire us to change is a good, firm shove."--Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
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Community Reviews
Joy for Beginners is the story of a group of women who become friends while volunteering to take turns helping a new mom with her twins. When one of them is diagnosed with breast cancer, the groups shifts its focus from supporting the new mom to helping the newly diagnosed woman get through her 18 months of surgery, chemo, radiation, and recuperation.
The book starts at the celebration dinner of the woman's survival and she challenges each one of her friends to do something that they're afraid of but will help each of them grow as a person or get out of a particular rut they're in.
Each section of the book focuses on one friend, with the others weaving in and out of that friend's story. The characters were likable, the outcomes predictable, but I would not recommend it unless you were at a marathon swim meet with lots of time on your hands and no other reading material handy.
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