From Goodreads
From the bestselling author of The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes comes a huge-hearted novel about death, family and finding laughter in the most bloody mental places.
When forty-year-old Rabbit Hayes dies, she leaves behind a family broken by grief. Her mother Molly is distraught and in danger of losing her faith. Her father Jack spends hour upon hour in the family attic, poring over his old diaries, losing himself in the past.
Rabbit's brother Davey finds himself suddenly guardian to her twelve-year-old daughter Juliet. Juliet might be able to fill a hole in Davey's heart - but how can he help Juliet through her grief when he can barely cope with his own?
Meanwhile, Rabbit's sister Grace is struggling with the knowledge that she carries the same gene that made her sister ill, and Rabbit's best friend Marjorie is lost, struggling to remain a part of a family she has always wished was her own now that her link to them is gone.
But even though the Hayes family are all fighting their own battles, they are drawn together by their love for Rabbit, and their love for each other. In the years that follow her death they find new ways to celebrate and remember her, to find humour and hope in the face of tragedy, and to live life to its fullest, as Rabbit would have wanted.
Below a Big Blue Sky will make you laugh, cry and shout with joy for the colourful, unruly Hayes family as they battle with the loss of their beloved Rabbit, the daughter, mother, sister and friend, who in her own crazy way taught each of them how to live, and goes on showing them how to love from beyond the grave.
My thoughts
My thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers and The Book Club on Facebook for the opportunity to take part in this Blog Tour. It was a pleasure to take part and I couldn't miss out on reading the story.
When I knew that Anna McPartlin had a new book coming out and that it was the sequel to the Last Days of Rabbit Hayes. I was both really happy and sad at the same time. My emotions were in turmoil to be honest. How on Earth could Anna McPartlin follow the story on?
Well she followed it on brilliantly in my opinion. It was a real roller coaster of emotions, as early on we learn about the funeral and how all the characters in their own way dealt with saying their goodbyes to a much loved mother, daughter, sister and friend. Finding ways of coming to terms with never seeing her again and learning to cope with the hole that she has left in their lives.
Told from the points of view of various characters and in short chapters, this story makes you feel that you are there with them, experiencing all that they are going through.
This story and how the day before the funeral evolved brought back memories of mine surrounding a funeral and the way that it was handled by my family as a Catholic family. How we brought my Dad home on the day before his funeral and the coffin being open until the morning of the funeral. I was around 5/6 months pregnant at the time and how we as a close family, my Mum and brothers stayed up all night comforting one another. Chatting and laughing, remembering all the good times and sometimes the not so good times. Emotions running at a high.
I have always wondered how I would cope with finding out whether I carried a gene like Rabbit and Grace did. How would you cope with it, if you were the surviving sibling and you found out that you had that gene? I have always hoped that I would make the decision that could potentially save my life and prevent it developing into cancer, but unless faced with it you never know what you would do.
Whilst, this could have been a rather sad and depressing story due to the nature of death and life after, it wasn't that at all. It was sad at times and I did shed the odd tear or two, but it was equally uplifting in more ways than one.
Finally, my thanks to Anna McPartlin for taking us on this continuing journey with Rabbit, the family and friends that she left behind.
This was a very well deserved 5 stars or 10/10 read and one that will stay with me for some time.
RIP Rabbit.
My thanks to NetGalley for the copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.
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