We All Want Impossible Things

by Catherine Newman

First published 2022

Ash watches her best friend Edi slip away from terminal cancer. The two women have shared everything across four decades. They stole vodka as teenagers. They went through Madonna obsessions and REM concerts together. They supported each other through marriages, infertility struggles, and raising children. Edi remembers what Ash forgets. Ash knows Edi's deepest fears and strangest quirks. Now Ash reshapes her days around Edi's needs. She brings chipped ice and watermelon cubes. She arranges music therapy sessions. She smuggles in forbidden snacks and takes Edi on midnight trips into the winter cold. Each moment becomes precious as Ash learns to extract joy from an impossible situation while preparing to lose the person who knows her best.

Genres: literary-fiction, friendship, contemporary, family-drama

Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: found-family, slice-of-life

224 pages · Hardcover · Harper

Content warnings: terminal-illness

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