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Summary
Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A pair of sisters find themselves at a crossroads in this dazzling new novel from the author of Something Borrowed, Where We Belong, and The One & Only . First Comes Love is a story about family, friendship, and the courage to follow your own heart--wherever that may lead.
Growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a loving, if sometimes contentious, relationship. Josie was impulsive, spirited, and outgoing, Meredith hardworking, thoughtful, and reserved. When tragedy strikes, their delicate bond splinters.
Fifteen years later, Josie and Meredith are in their late thirties, following very different paths. Josie, a first grade teacher, is single--and this close to swearing off dating for good. What she wants more than the right guy, however, is to become a mother--a feeling that is heightened when her ex-boyfriend's daughter is assigned to her class. Determined to have the future she's always wanted, Josie decides to take matters into her own hands.
On the outside, Meredith is the model daughter with the perfect life. A successful attorney, she's married to a wonderful man, and together they're raising a beautiful four-year-old daughter. Yet lately Meredith feels dissatisfied and restless, secretly wondering if she chose the life that was expected of her rather than the one she truly desired.
As the anniversary of their tragedy looms, and painful secrets from the past begin to surface, Josie and Meredith must not only confront the issues that divide them but also come to terms with their own choices. In their journey toward understanding and forgiveness, both sisters discover that they need each other more than they knew--and that in the search for true happiness, love always comes first.
Praise for First Comes Love
"An engaging story of sisterly love . . . Illuminating and engrossing." --People
" Emily] Giffin delivers another emotionally honest work. . . . First Comes Love is a heart-stirring novel about the many layers of sibling rivalry." -- Associated Press
" First Comes Love brings Giffin] back with a vengeance. Tales of sisters have been at the core of other great novels, but Giffin turns that relationship upside down and makes her view a fascinating one." -- Huffington Post
"Moving and complex, First Comes Love ] proves that Emily Giffin is] still at the top of her game." -- Booklist
"Giffin juggles Josie's quest for motherhood and Meredith's internal conflicts deftly. . . . Giffin paints a realistic portrait of the troubled and complex relationship between a pair of sisters." -- Kirkus Reviews
"This is Giffin at her finest--a fantastic, memorable story." --Publishers Weekly
" First Comes Love is an un-put-down-able, smart, and thoughtful novel that will make you think about the nature of family and how our past informs our present." -- PopSugar
"Giffin's talent is pretty much unparalleled when it comes to the modern woman's story about life, love and family." -- Redbook
" A] well-written family drama." --Real Simple
"Fans will be entertained by the author's humor and satisfied by her storytelling" --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Author Notes
Emily Giffin was born March 20, 1972 in Baltimore, Maryland. She received an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997. She moved to Manhattan and worked in the litigation department of Winston and Strawn. Her first book, Something Borrowed, was published in 2004. She is currently a full-time author. Her other books include Something Blue, Baby Proof, Love the One You're With, Heart of the Matter, Where We Belong, The One and Only and First Comes Love.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of Giffin's will find much to love in her chronicle of the rocky relationship between two disparate sisters 15 years after the death of their older brother, Daniel. Meredith is now a lawyer who's always felt that she's needed to make sacrifices in order to keep her fragile parents happy. She's been married to Daniel's childhood best friend, Nolan, for almost seven years, though she's long doubted their love for each other. Josie is content as a first grade teacher but longs to be a mother herself, though at 37 she's thinking about giving up on dating and having a kid on her own through a donor. Her decision is spurred by having in her class the daughter of a former flame, which also triggers memories of his role in the night that Daniel died. Meredith views Josie as self-centered and immature, while Josie sees her sister as tightly wound and judgmental. Chapters alternate from each sister's point of view, convincing the reader to see things from both perspectives. In her lead-up to the book's climax and big secret, Giffin manages to explore numerous themes about this sibling relationship: holding on to the past, expectations, and forgiveness. This is Giffin at her finest-a fantastic, memorable story. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A family struggles to define their new normal 15 years after a tragic loss. Sisters Josie and Meredith couldn't be more different. While Josie is an occasionally capricious, still-single elementary school teacher longing for a child of her own, Meredith is a diligent and obsessive lawyer, mother, and wife. Though Meredith desperately tries to create a "perfect Facebook faade," there are definite cracks at the edges. She is uninterested in trying for a second child, feels listless in her career, and questions the foundation of her marriage. Josie, meanwhile, is attempting to cope with the heavy emotional burden of having her ex-boyfriend'sthe one she still isn't completely overyoung daughter assigned to her class. At nearly 38, with no romantic prospects in sight, Josie decides that she will have to take charge of her desire to be a mother, setting off Meredith, who considers this to be just another one of Josie's whims. At the core of this troubled family are the grief that lingers over their brother Daniel's untimely death, the questions that swirl regarding what exactly happened on that fateful night, and the rapidly approaching milestone anniversary. Bestseller Giffin (The One Only, 2014, etc.) juggles Josie's quest for motherhood and Meredith's internal conflicts deftly, with the third force always being their lost brother and the feelings of what their family could have been had things worked out differently. While Josie and Meredith sometimes seem just a touch too self-aware considering their foibles, Giffin paints a realistic portrait of the troubled and complex relationship between a pair of sisters. Beyond the sisters, the novel is rich with well-drawn characters, from Gabe, Josie's best friend and platonic roommate, to Sophie, Daniel's girlfriend at the time of his death. Giffin's fans will be pleased with this fast-paced, witty, and thoughtful new offering. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Fifteen years ago, the tragic death of 25-year-old Daniel Garland devastated his family. His sisters, Josie and Meredith, have built very different lives for themselves in the wake of their loss. Wild-child Josie became a schoolteacher but hasn't found anyone to settle down with aside from her platonic best friend and roommate, Gabe. Serious Meredith gave up her theatrical aspirations to become a lawyer and then married Daniel's closest friend, Nolan. On the cusp of turning 38, Josie shocks her family by announcing that she's decided to have a child on her own. Meredith is infuriated by what she sees as a reckless choice on Josie's part, but she's also grappling with a problem: her growing dissatisfaction with her marriage to Nolan. When Josie makes a devastating discovery about the night Daniel died, she hesitates over telling Meredith, knowing that it could destroy their already tenuous relationship forever. Moving and complex, Giffin's latest, following The One & Only (2014), proves she's still at the top of her game.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Sisters Josie and Meredith are each struggling with tough life choices testing their fragile sisterly bond as the 15th anniversary of the tragic death of their brother looms. Free-spirited Josie is ready for motherhood. But as she nears 40 without a serious romantic relationship, she opts for a sperm donor. Meredith has gone the more traditional route to motherhood and has a young daughter with her husband, Nolan. But all is not as idyllic as it appears to her Instagram followers or even those who know her IRL (in real life), and she has an increasingly difficult time hiding her unhappiness. As she and Josie begin to face the truth surrounding their brother's death, their relationship is called into question. This well-written and engaging story explores how relationships evolve and people can surprise us if we let them. VERDICT With a theme similar to other women's fiction dealing with sisterly conflict, such as Jennifer Weiner's In Her Shoes, Giffin's latest (after The One & Only) is sure to be a great discussion starter for book groups and a hit with the author's many fans. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]-Karen Core, Detroit P.L. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
JOSIE It is the first day of school, a symbolic and hopeful fresh start, at least that's what I tell myself as I stand before my captive, well-scrubbed audience of ten boys and eleven girls in my J.Crew finest--gold ballet flats, gray pants, and a pink, sequined sweater set. Sitting cross-legged on the braided rug, some children beam back at me, while others wear blank expressions, waiting without judging. It is the beauty of first graders. They are guileless, not a jaded one among them. Odds are good that they'd heard that they'd scored in the great, mysterious teacher lottery before they even walked through my classroom door, adorned with a construction-paper maple tree, cutouts of twenty-one personalized bluebirds, and a banner swinging from the boughs that exclaims: WELCOME TO MISS JOSIE'S NEST! After fourteen years teaching at the same elementary school, I have a reputation as fun, energetic, and creative. I am not considered strict, but not a pushover, either. Incidentally, I am also known as the "pretty teacher," which some parents (fathers and mothers alike) seem to value as much as anything else, including straight-up intelligence, a sentiment that has always confounded and vaguely annoyed me. I mean, I know I'm not teaching quantum calculus, but I am instilling critical survival skills in children, teaching them how to add and subtract, tell time, count money, and most important, really read, unlocking the mystery of consonant combinations and abstract sounds, blended and pronounced as words, strung together in sentences, filling the pages of books, whether with or without pictures. It might seem like Groundhog Day to some, including a few of my colleagues who really need to change professions, but I am passionate about what I do, thrilled to watch things click for a new crop of children every year. Yet amid the anticipation is always a melancholy feeling that the summer is over, coupled with a familiar prickling of self-doubt and anxiety that has marked all my first days of school, both as a teacher and as a student before that. I consider the many potential obstacles ahead, wondering how many of my kids will have ADHD or dyslexia or other garden-variety learning issues. Who will become frustrated or disheartened when they fall behind their peers? Which children will have impossible-to-please parents who will bombard me with emails and calls, make outlandish suggestions for our curriculum, or point out grammatical errors in my newsletters under the guise of constructive criticism? (No matter how many times I proofread my correspondence, it is inevitable that at some point during the year I will misspell a word or misplace an apostrophe, mistakes that somehow seem more egregious from a teacher than, say, a lawyer or doctor.) Then there is the disturbing matter of Edie Carlisle, the firstborn of my most significant ex, Will Carlisle. Will and I broke up years ago--eight to be exact--but I'm not yet over him, at least not completely. And I simply can't believe that his little girl has been assigned to my class, a fact I try in vain to forget as I launch into my script, a variation of what I say every year. Hello, boys and girls! My name is Miss Josie! I grew up right here in Atlanta and graduated from the University of Georgia. Go Dawgs! I love animals and have a rescue dog named Revis. I have one sister and a beautiful four-year-old niece named Harper. My favorite color is pink, like my sweater. My hobbies include swimming, reading, baking cookies, dancing, and playing board games. I'm good at keeping secrets and being a trustworthy friend. I hope you will all be good friends to one another this year. I'm so excited to get to know each and every one of you and I feel very lucky to be your teacher! It sounded pretty good, the exuberant delivery elevating it to a solid A, even though I could hear the annotated version in my head, which went something like this: Every time I say "Miss Josie" I think it sounds like a stripper--a job I fleetingly considered taking one summer in college because strippers make a hell of a lot more money than waitresses. And teachers, for that matter. I have a dog, and a sister named Meredith. She drives me nuts, and I would mostly avoid her altogether if it weren't for my niece, Harper. I used to have an older brother, but he died in a car accident a long time ago, something I don't like to talk about, especially to my students. I think the subject of one's favorite color is supremely boring because it really doesn't tell you much of anything (color for what--a car or a purse or your bedroom walls?), but for some inexplicable reason, you all seem hyperfocused on it, so I'm going to say pink because roughly half of you will be pleased with my choice and at least a third of you will marvel over the coincidence of sharing the same favorite hue. Swimming isn't really a hobby, just a thing I sometimes do at the Y in an attempt to keep off the weight that I'm prone to gaining around my midsection (from all the cookies I bake, then eat), something you seem not to notice or at least not to judge. I do enjoy board games, but I'd rather play drinking games with my friends--or go dancing with them (did I mention I could have been a stripper fifteen pounds ago?). I can keep secrets, especially my own, which is a good thing, because if your parents knew some of my skeletons, they might send around a petition to have me fired. Friendship means everything to me because I'm thirty-seven and can't find a decent man to marry, which is depressing both because I don't want to be alone and because I adore children more than anything else in the world. I know I'm running out of time, at least to birth my own. Please be nice to one another this year because the one thing I will not tolerate on my watch is mean girl (or boy) escapades--though fortunately those dynamics don't really kick in until next year, yet another reason to teach the first grade. I'm so excited to get to know each and every one of you, and that includes you, Edie Carlisle. Did your father tell you that he dumped me right before he married your mother and had you? I will do my best not to hold this against you, but please show a little mercy and keep your happy-home anecdotes to a minimum. I smile down at their eager, shining faces and say, "So? Do you have any questions for me?" Four hands shoot into the air, and as I consider who is the least likely to ask the one query I have come to loathe, a fidgety boy with messy hair and ruddy cheeks blurts it out: Do you have a husband? Three seconds flat. A new record. Congrats, Wesley, I think, glancing at his laminated name tag which I made over the weekend, and making a mental note to work into the curriculum that a bare left ring finger means please do not ask questions on the topic of marriage. Perhaps I could squeeze it in between our weather unit and the introduction to the metric system. I force a bigger, brighter smile, doing my best to ignore the knot in my chest. "No, Wesley. I'm not married. Maybe one day! And let's try to remember to raise our hands before we call out. Like this," I say, raising my hand for a visual demonstration. "Okay?" Wesley's head bobs up and down while I reassure myself that surely Edie knows nothing about my relationship with her father. After all, any knowledge of his romantic past would indicate inappropriate mothering-- and I'm sure that Andrea (pronounced on-DRAY-ah) Carlisle has immaculate judgment to go along with her impeccable taste, which I've gleaned from stalking her Pinterest page. Gluten-free snacks! Homemade Halloween costumes! Postpregnancy workouts you can do with your child! Paint colors for a serene master suite! Thank God the woman's Instagram and Facebook profiles are set to private--a small blessing from the social media gods. Excerpted from First Comes Love by Emily Giffin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.