The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos - Kelly Irvin - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Kelly Irvin

NARRATORS: Jessica Holtan and Jeremy Childs

GENRE: Contemporary Christian Drama

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary Christian drama focussed on an extended family whose life turns upside down after a cancer diagnosis. The Christian elements are more progressive than conservative, which is fine by me but might not work for conservative believers. One of the main characters is annoying. Overall, a decent read, but not a memorable one for me.

Story Synopsis:

Kristen is a workaholic oncologist who gives her all to her patients, even if it comes at a cost to her personal life with husband Daniel. But when her elder sister Sherri is diagnosed with stage-IV ovarian cancer, Kristen is ready to put everything on hold to ensure that her sister gets the best chances of recovery. Yet again, Daniel feels ignored.

Sherri is a happy kindergarten teacher who has always lived her life making healthy choices. A divorcee, she loves her kids and grandkids. With the cancer diagnosis, she feels the pressure of having a limited time with her loved ones and the pain of giving up the job that means so much to her.

Post the cancer verdict, Kristen and Sherri are determined to make the best of the time Sherri has left and to prolong her good health as much as they can.

The story comes to us in the first person perspectives of Kristen, Sherri, and Daniel.

Bookish Yays:

😍 It was refreshing to see middle-aged characters in the lead. Kristen is 48 and Sherri is 52. The problems they face are the ones typical of that age, and their behaviour also matches their character age.

😍 Sherri is an amazing character, despite having some personality flaws. (Which go to make her even more real.) I loved how practical she was about the whole cancer thing, fighting against the disease but still trying to be prepared for any eventuality.

😍 The sibling bond between the sisters is amazing. As the title indicates, the story is set over a year, and this year turns out to be an eventful one. All through, the sisters come close to each other and help each other in myriad ways.

😍 I love that Daniel is given his own voice. It would have been so easy to turn this woman-dominated story into a typical tale of siblings bonding after traumatic news. But Daniel’s perspective acts as the voice of balance, and also offers an external view on the happenings that Kristen is blind to.

😍 The medical details seemed very true-to-life and authentic, though only medical professionals might be able to gauge the accuracy of the same.

😍 The initial setup shows Kristen as the sister to envy, with her happy marriage, wealthy husband, big home, and flourishing career. Time shows that material wealth does matter and it is the divorcee and relatively poorer Sherri who lives a more fulfilling life. This was subtly but well done.

😍 The author's note at the end was very touching. She is a grade-IV cancer survivor, and it is her own medical ordeal that inspired her to pen this novel. I love her advice about listening to our body, even if our doctor suggests that nothing is wrong.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

😐 This is a Christian contemporary drama. The pros of the Christian representation are mainly in how Sherri uses her faith to guide her through her health issues, and how Kristen, who isn’t religious, grows in faith. On the other hand, this book has a few elements not common in this genre. There’s infidelity and divorce, both of which aren’t what conservative readers will appreciate. There are also a couple of irreverent references to God.

😐 Kristin and Sherri both have adult children. Sherri’s children are very easy to relate to, as their characters are sketched well. However, Kristin’s children are written in a one-dimensional manner.

😐 Daniel’s character earns a lot of sympathy for the way he is treated by Kristen. He seems to have a lot of patience and his breaking point seemed very realistic. However, the Pilar connection was predictable and irritating.

😐 I enjoyed the medical theme and the comments about the expenses related to health scares, treatments, and clinical trials. I also liked the focus on faith, work-life balance, and family dynamics. But I didn’t enjoy the inclusion of themes that weren’t connected to the core topic. Politics and racial discrimination simply didn’t fit into the storyline, then why wave those flags here? Overload of social commentary is never fun to read.

Bookish Nays:

😒 Kristin’s character was very tough to connect to. I get that she was a busy oncologist, but she was taking her family, especially her husband, for granted. After a point, “I’ll try better” has no merit if the intention isn’t followed by action. The justification that anything is acceptable as long as your goals are noble is silly. Her turnaround in the book is also too abrupt.

😒 The track about Kristin and Sherri’s estranged father suddenly making a reappearance and being accepted after only minimal hesitation feels farfetched.

😒 There’s much stress on how Daniel’s architecture firm develops environmentally friendly structures and how important it is to think in terms of sustainability. And yet the main characters smoke numerous cigarettes, throw away leftover or uneaten food, and leave lights on in houses. You can’t be environmentally conscious only in one avenue and ignore everything else.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at nearly 12 hours, is narrated by Jessica Holtan and Jeremy Childs. I did like both their narrations, but didn’t love them. As there are two female characters using the first person, having only one female narrator is a bit confusing, even though she tries a subtle variation in her pitch for each character. She does give a personality to the two sisters with her performance, but she sounds much younger than the age of the characters. In case of the male narrator voicing Daniel, the advantage is that his voice suits Daniel’s age, actually sounding like a man in his late forties or early fifties. However, his speaking style was a bit too lulling for my ears. Also, he doesn’t narrate the female voices in a different tone, so his narration sounds monotonous at times.

All in all, this novel definitely has some strong pros. But Kristen’s character and some of the themes made it tough for me to enjoy it more than I did.

A decent one-time read, recommended to women’s fiction readers. Will definitely work better if you read it with your heart than with your head. If you are picking this up for its Christian elements, better if you are a liberal or progressive Christian.

My thanks to HarperCollins Christian Publishing and NetGalley for the ALC of “The Year of Goodbyes and Hellos”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.