Review: Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives by Becky Aikman

Title: Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives by Becky Aikman
Publisher: Crown
Genre: Contemporary, Biography, Autobiography
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: A+ & A Recommended Read

Review Copy Obtained from Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

Six marriages, six heartbreaks, one shared beginning.

In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas. Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.

Meet the Saturday Night Widows: ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.

The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen. They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down. Through it all runs the story of Aikman’s own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again. In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widowsis a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.

The Review:

Becky Aikman’s Saturday Night Widows: The Adventures of Six Friends Remaking Their Lives is a poignant yet uplifting story about six women and their struggle to redefine their lives following their husbands’ deaths. It is an inspirational novel that should be on everyone’s reading list.

Saturday Night Widows is not just a novel for someone who has lost their spouse. Death is an unavoidable fact of life and Ms. Aikman’s memoir provides incredible insight into the grieving process. Her research and interviews challenge conventional theories on the five stages of grief and demonstrate that everyone grieves in their own way. It also offers practical information for supporting someone who has suffered the loss of their spouse. Although the story focuses on widows, anyone who has suffered a loss will gain a better understanding of the grieving process.

Their stories are heartbreaking, but it is the upbeat and positive attitudes of these wonderful women that makes Saturday Night Widows such a compelling read. Through their support group, they find the courage to step out of their comfort zones. Their monthly get togethers are not a time to rehash their losses, but a time to have fun and experience life to the fullest. Their support for one another is unconditional and they cheer each other on as they begin new relationships and move on to the next chapter in their lives.

Becky Aikman has written a captivating tale that will resonate with anyone who has ever lost a loved one or knows someone who has. Saturday Night Widows is not a book about loss but a moving story of friendship. It is a beautiful novel about surviving devastating losses, moving past that heartache and embracing the future.