Name: We Are All Made of Stars
ISBN: 9780091953126

Rowan Coleman

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of THE MEMORY BOOK, WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS is 'tender, poignant, hopeful' Sunday Mirror. 'A bittersweet story about love and letting go, you'll remember these wonderfully affecting and very human characters long after you''ve turned the last page' Sunday Express Stella Carey exists in a world of night. Married to an ex-soldier, she leaves the house every evening as Vincent locks himself away, along with the scars and the secrets he carries. During her nursing shifts, Stella writes letters for her patients to their loved ones - some full of humour, love and practical advice, others steeped in regret or pain - and promises to post these messages after their deaths. Until one night Stella writes the letter that could give her patient one last chance at redemption, if she delivers it in time...

We Are All Made of Stars

Siya S

★★★★★ 5 UGLY-CRYING-ON-THE-FEEL-TRAIN WORTHY STARS!!!!! 


  
    "So do not miss me, because I do not die; I transform – into the wind in the tops of the trees, the wave on the ocean, the pebbles under your foot, the dust on your bookshelves, the midnight sky. Wherever you look, I will be there."
  




OH.MY.GOD. THIS...this piece of art, this beautifully written prose. It breaks my heart. It lifts me up. I'm trapped in the whirlwind of emotions right now. It's so so so good.

Just look at it. Look at the writing. It's so subtle and precise and smooth and beautifully arranged in ways that could make you weep like a goddamn lunatic. It will make you laugh and cry and by the time you reach the last page you wouldn't being able to tell the two apart. So, yes it is THAT good.



We Are All Made of Stars is a look about loss, coping, redemption and everything in between. And I'm such a sucker for novels about human connection with multi-protagonists (e.g. The Illusion of Separateness). Told in 3 unique voices, the story orbited around lives at the hospice at the center of London.


  I changed because he did, because when he didn’t want me any more, I discovered I didn’t want to be me.


Stella was a nurse at Marie Francis who did an honorable letter-writing routine, granting one last wish to the terminally ill patients. She deliberately volunteered to man the night shifts at Marie Francis Hospice because her marriage was crumpling to bits after her husband Vincent lost his leg in Afghanistan. Her unwavering love for Vincent was super ugly-crying worthy.


  Sometimes I wonder if she’d wished she could change my name, after I was diagnosed as a baby and the situation was officially hope-less, but it was too late by then; it was a name that already belonged to me – a cruel irony that we both have to live with now.


Also at the hospice was Hope, a CF patient who was raised to believe she wouldn't make it through her thirties. But with her best friend Ben and his adorable charisma, Hope might finally learn a thing or two about living and stop dwelling on the dying part of her deal.


  ‘So you’re an orphan now?’ Mikey rocks Jake like a child, and his tough little face softens a little, revealing those baby edges that are just about still present.
‘Well, technically, but I’m heading towards forty, so … I’m not about to burst into “The sun will come out tomorrow”.’


Hugh was a scholar in his thirties, single, and still living in his late parent's house. Little did he know that his life was going to turn upside down with the arrival of next door neighbor and the encounter with a tired-looking nurse with a crumble letter in her hand.

Dialogues exchanged between characters were golden. The sad part just had my tears sprung out of my eyes while the easygoing part always caught me by surprise with a giant guffaw bubbled in my throat. My favorite was the exchanges volleyed between Hugh and Mikey, his next-door neighbor boy. I was just literally laughing out loud.

Something like:


  ‘You’re a bit pissed off that I’m here, aren’t you?’ I say, and he glances up at me, perhaps intrigued by my daring use of bad language. Well, if that’s what it takes to get his attention, I haven’t played all my cards yet. I’ve still got shit and fuck to show that I’m down with the kids.


OR;


  ‘Do you like fishing?’ I ask him.
‘No.’ He looks offended.
‘Have you ever tried it?’
‘I’m not gay,’ he says.
‘Whether or not you like fishing isn’t a marker of your sexual orientation.’
‘You like long words, don’t you?’ he says. ‘And bow ties. But I don’t think you are gay because you fancy my mum'




The writing is AMAZING, and Coleman has done a great job describe feelings and emotions. I was hooked right from the first page, I mean, not many people can write an emotional letter about the washing machine like she did. This is a kind of book that you can learn something from. The story didn't feel forced, and I didn't feel like someone just pointed a gun at me expecting me to cry (like that time I read The Fault in Our Stars with my eyes dry and my friend insisted something was really wrong with me). 

This is definitely my Best Book Of The Year. And don't start with me saying it's only April, because I'm absolutely positive that the title will stick around for the rest of the year.

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