Name: Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
Rating: 3.65 (20 reviews)
ISBN: 9781250823144

Alison Espach

"The summer before Sally Holt starts the eighth grade begins as a gloriously uneventful one, full of family trips to the beach and long afternoons at the local pool with her older sister Kathy, which they mostly use as an excuse to ogle Billy Barnes, who works the concession stand there. Their fascination with him is one of the few things the increasingly different sisters have in common. By summer's end Billy and Kathy are an item-an unthinkable stroke of luck that ends in an even more unthinkable tragedy. Set over the course of fifteen years, charting shared history and missed connections, NOTES ON YOUR SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE is both a breathtaking love story between two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other, and a wry, sharply observant coming-of-age story that looks at the ways the people we love the most continue to shape our lives long after they're gone"--

A Novel

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance

Named a Best Book of 2022 by NPR and The Chicago Tribune From Alison Espach, author of the New York Times Editors' Choice novel The Adults, comes a dazzlingly unconventional love story for readers of Ask Again, Yes and Tell the Wolves I’m Home. For much of her life, Sally Holt has been mystified by the things her older sister, Kathy, seems to have been born knowing. Kathy has answers for all of Sally’s questions about life, about love, and about Billy Barnes, a rising senior and local basketball star who mans the concession stand at the town pool. The girls have been fascinated by Billy ever since he jumped off the roof in elementary school, but Billy has never shown much interest in them until the summer before Sally begins eighth grade. By then, their mutual infatuation with Billy is one of the few things the increasingly different sisters have in common. Sally spends much of that summer at the pool, watching in confusion and excitement as her sister falls deeper in love with Billy—until a tragedy leaves Sally’s life forever intertwined with his. Opening in the early nineties and charting almost two decades of shared history and missed connections, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is both a breathtaking love story about two broken people who are unexplainably, inconveniently drawn to each other and a wryly astute coming-of-age tale brimming with unexpected moments of joy. “Heartbreaking and funny, often in the same sentence—a deeply felt, finely wrought, and highly satisfying novel. Alison Espach has created a family whose every sorrow, joy, and idiosyncrasy is utterly, vibrantly real.”—New York Times bestselling author Claire Lombardo

debbie <3

Alexa M

"There is something deeply wrong with me. There is a dark hole inside of me, where you used to be; it's the space where I live now. It's soundless and windless and without gravity, and from here, I can see everything. From here, I look back out at the world, at all the regular people living their life so easily." 

 wow !!!  this was so good. equal parts heart-breaking and witty with overall melancholic vibes. Sally loses her sister at 13 and spends the next 15 years grappling with that loss and learning how to live with, and explore, her grief. i loved the familial aspects, the sisterly bond, and all the different portrayals of grief. this book has a slow vibe but is very fast-paced, if that makes sense. i really, really loved this !!

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance A Novel

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