What Comes Next and How to Like It

A Memoir

By: Abigail Thomas

Narrated by: Abigail Thomas

The New York Times bestseller from the beloved author of A Three Dog Life—an exhilarating, superbly written memoir on friendship, family, creativity, tragedy, and the richness of life: “If you only read one book this year, make it this one” (Ann Patchett).

In her bestselling memoir A Three Dog Life, Abigail Thomas wrote about the devastating loss of her husband. In What Comes Next and How to Like It, “a keenly observed memoir…Thomas writes of the changes aging brings us all and of coping through love: of family, dogs, a well-turned phrase. She is superb company” (People).

Thomas was startled to overhear herself described as “a nice old lady with a tattoo,” because she thinks of herself as not nice, not old, nor a lady. But she has wondered: what comes next? What comes after the death of a spouse? What form does a lifelong friendship take after deepest betrayal? How does a mother cope with her child’s dire illness? Or the death of a cherished dog?

And how to like it? How to accept, appreciate, enjoy? How to find solace and pleasure? How to sustain and be sustained by our most trusted, valuable companions? At its heart, What Comes Next and How to Like It is about the complicated friendship between Thomas and a man she met thirty-five years ago—a rich bond that has lasted through marriages, child-raising, and the vicissitudes and tragedies of life. “After all,” she writes, “there are those people we love, and then there are those we recognize. These are the unbreakable connections.”

Exquisitely observed, lush with sentences you will read over and over again, What Comes Next and How to Like It “is a beautifully felt, deeply moving memoir, the best work yet by a woman who has already done some of the best work in the field. Abigail Thomas is the Emily Dickinson of memoirists, and so much of this book’s wisdom is between the lines and in the white spaces. It may only take you two days to read, but the impact will stay with you for a long, long time” (Stephen King). This is a glorious guide to living imperfectly and exuberantly.

Wonderful

Loved the story and loved the author’s voice.
I wish more of her books were available on audible!

I loved every minute of it

I love the tiny chapters, each with its own morsel of thought-provoking questions… and wisdom… and humor… and wonder.. and joy.

not sure what I expected

anyone weirder in the head than I should probably not be writing books... a little too much like looking in a mirror

Raw truths

Abigail Thomas writes with an economy of words and the fullness of a heart wide open.
I am grateful to have found her writings.

Flight of Ideas

I loved A Three Dog Life, the author's previously published memoir. I found it honest, deeply thoughtful and compelling. I had high hopes that What Comes Next might pick up where that book left off and continue along the same lines. No such luck.

Instead this book is jumpy, nervous, scattered and almost flighty. There are 150 short chapters in a book that only lasts 3 hours and 13 minutes. Some of these chapters last only one minute or really a sentence or two. It is very jarring, random and disconnected.

But worse than this--the whole feeling of the book puts the reader into the awful position of being the third wheel at lunch with two old best friends. These best friends laugh and argue about things that happened over their 30+ year friendship while you, the reader, just sit and listen. There is no attempt to include you, fill in detail as they speak in best friend "code" finishing each others cryptic sentences having a good laugh.

It left me cold, confused and excluded from a book that I think the author wrote for herself alone. No reader needed here. Sorry I wasted my time on this one.