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    The Possibilities: A Novel
    The Possibilities: A Novel
    The Possibilities: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Possibilities: A Novel

    Written by Kaui Hart Hemmings

    Narrated by Joy Osmanski

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Descendants—a “funny, insightful, and unsentimental” (People, 4 stars) novel about a grieving mother and the shocking surprise that may help her reclaim her hold on life.

    In the idyllic ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Sarah St. John is reeling. Three months ago, her twenty-two-year-old son, Cully, died in an avalanche. Sarah’s father, a retiree, tries to distract her from her grief with gadgets from the home shopping channel. Sarah’s best friend offers life advice by venting details of her own messy divorce. Even Cully’s father reemerges, stirring more emotions and confusion than Sarah needs. But Sarah feels she is facing the stages of grief—the anger, the sadness, the letting go—alone; she desperately wants to hear the swoosh of her son’s ski pants, or watch him skateboard past her window. And one day a strange girl arrives on her doorstep. Unexpected and unexplained, she bears a secret from Cully that could change all of their lives forever.

    With wry wit and intuition, Kaui Hart Hemmings highlights the subtle poignancies of grief and relationships in this stunning look at people faced with impossible choices. Called “surprisingly entertaining” (The New York Times Book Review) and “familiar yet richly, astutely observant and reflective” (The Boston Globe), The Possibilities brilliantly portrays tragic ineffability with grace and hope.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 13, 2014
    ISBN9781442368248
    Author

    Kaui Hart Hemmings

    Kaui Hart Hemmings has degrees from Colorado College and Sarah Lawrence, and she was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her first novel, a New York Times bestseller, The Descendants, has been published in twenty-two other countries and is now an Oscar-winning film directed by Alexander Payne and starring George Clooney. She is also the author of a story collection House of Thieves, the novels How to Party with an Infant and The Possibilities, and the YA novel Juniors. She lives in Hawaii.

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    Reviews for The Possibilities

    3.5/5

    65 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5
      i loved the author's previous book (the descendants) so much that i was disappointed with this one. it was like she was trying too hard to make the characters seem witty.
    • 5/5
      Surprisingly funny despite its heavy subject material. I was in the mood for a novel set in reality, no magic, no experimental writing, and I was really happy with this choice. The dialogue is great and while the story is slightly predictable, it takes a few unexpected directions.
    • 5/5
      The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings is a very highly recommended novel about a mother dealing with her grief.

      Three months ago 43 year old Sarah St. John's 22 year old son, Cully, was killed in an avalanche. Set in Breckenridge, Colorado, where Sarah is a talk show host, she tries going back to work after a three month absences, but understands all too well that she may not be ready. She silently entreats "Please, give me strength. Strength to return, to get back to life. My plan is to move in seamlessly, drawing as little attention to myself as possible. I will reemerge wearing a figurative cap, similar to the one my twenty-two-year-old son wore, what the kids wear—a cap to hide their eyes, their face, a cap that says I’m here but I’m not here." (Location 88)

      While Sarah and her father, Lyle, are trying to deal with their grief as much as they can, they chose opposing strategies. Lyle is coping through buying things off the Home Shopping Network while Sarah feels the need to cleanse her home, Cully's room. Her best friend, Suzanne, offers to help Sarah clean up and organize Cully's room, but she is also trying to cope with her own grief from her divorce and she thoughtlessly shares this, "The anger, the sadness, the letting go. We all go through these stages. Divorce is a kind of death, and... there are stages of grief. I find it comforting that we’re not alone. Big tragedies, small ones—” (Location 501)

      Cully's father, Billy, is also trying to recover. Even though he and Sarah never married, they are friends. Sarah admits to him:
      “It’s hard to talk to people. It’s hard to be with people. They really bother me now. People at work, friends, Miss Irony over there.”
      “I don’t like people either,” he says. (Location 1299)

      Sarah knows that one of the saddest parts about a death is being burdened by a lot of things our loved ones left behind. But all the time Sarah is trying to come to terms with Cully's death, she also begins to realize that she didn't actually know everything about her son's life anymore, especially when several baggies of pot and a large stash of cash is discovered. She also learns that Cully had a life quite apart from her and often called his father, Billy, just to talk. It seems that Cully shared things with Lyle and Billy that he didn't with Sarah.

      While Suzanne's daughter, Morgan, plans a memorial service at the community college, Sarah and Lyle meet Kit, who also knew Cully, it seems that this family has much more to consider as they mourn the all-too-young loss of a loved one. Clearly Cully is grieved and mourned by many,

      I love The Possibilities.

      Hemmings did a marvelous job capturing the strong conflicting emotions during a tragedy of this magnitude. Her writing is superb and her ability to capture the raw emotions in the aftermath of tragic circumstances in a family who has no choice but to keep moving forward is commendable. There is poignant insight and a depth of understanding the grieving process present in the characters and their actions/words. This is also about the family moving on, finding their way in a world without Cully and has a few rather humorous moments too.

      After suffering from two tragic deaths in my immediate family in under two months, I could understand Sarah's tortured emotions - her anger and sadness all mixed together. I am also experiencing the need to simplify, to get rid of stuff, to cleanse my life because you leave it all behind in the end. Grief is a fickle emotion; while it seems fathomless it can also take on a crass and greedy mantle. People can want a part of what might have been possible rather than looking at the possibilities in their own lives.

      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Simon & Schuster for review purposes.

    • 3/5
      Entertaining read, didn't notice until I started reading that the top cover blurb was from People magazine... not necessarily a great sign. I never could decide if I really liked any of the characters or related to them. I guessed immediately that Kit was Cully's girlfriend and pregnant and was annoyed that none of the characters guessed anything until half way through. I found the book a bit too predictable. The main character was not someone I would like as a friend, the only qualities she liked in her "best" friend Suzanne were ones that benefitted her. On the whole, I found Sarah just as shallow as Suzanne.
    • 5/5
      I was amazed at how well I thought Hemmings covered so many of the aspects of losing an adult child and, at the same time, including so many other characters with their related opinions. Fascinating. Especially when she used a sort of repeat performance to provide more views of the situation. The audio was very well done by Joy Osmanski, in part because of the great way Hemmings handles dialogue.
    • 4/5
      Excellent book.
    • 5/5
      For a parent, there are few things as devastating as the loss of a child and normally I avoid stories about children abducted or killed, but there’s an approachability to main character Sarah St. John that drew me into this novel and after reading the first few pages I was hooked. Breckenridge, Colorado is a mountain resort town full of tourists, but Sarah’s family has deep roots in its snowy landscape because it’s been their home for generations. Sarah’s son Cully was twenty-two and after graduating from college he was back home living with her when he died in an avalanche. It’s been just a few months since his death when the book opens and Sarah is overwhelmed but no longer crushed by sorrow and loss. The Possibilities is told in the present tense which I often dislike, but here the immediacy suits the story since Sarah is working through her grief, not reflecting on it later. The main characters--her father, her best friend, her former boyfriend, and the young woman who comes into their lives--are all realistically imperfect and sometimes petty, but their connections to each other are deeply moving. Without thinking too closely about it, which would probably ruin the analogy, they remind me of the family from Little Miss Sunshine. I appreciate that this book took on a difficult topic without providing formulaic answers, over simplifying, wallowing in tragedy and doom, or tying everything up too neatly and sweetly.The setting is so thoroughly integrated into the story that crisp, cold, clear mountain air practically blows off the pages. I haven’t read The Descendants, the author’s other novel, but if it is as well written as this book I fully understand its popularity.
    • 4/5
      THE POSSIBILITIES is a poignant story about coming to terms with loss, working through grief, and finding the strength to move on. The main characters in this book are mourning the death of Cully, a young man who was their son, grandson, and friend. His mother Sarah, in particular, is grieving the loss of his future possibilities, and she’s become stalled in her own life. Then, a stranger comes into Sarah’s idle existence who will jolt her awake once again.I enjoyed listening to this book. Kaui Hart Hemmings has an engaging writing style, and her characters are genuine, flawed, and easy to sympathize with. Given the conflict that the stranger brings, the plot could have gone in a cheesy and improbably direction, but luckily the author didn’t let that happen. The characters’ emotions, reactions, and ultimate decisions felt realistic to me.This book was narrated by Joy Osmanski, and I thought her performance was excellent. Her portrayal of Sarah and what she was going through was moving. She also did a great job creating distinct voices for the other characters, especially Sarah’s father, Kyle. He was the comic relief for this emotional story.THE POSSIBILITIES made me want to cry at times, but there were also many funny moments when I laughed out loud. Definitely an engrossing read (or listen) that will stay in my thoughts for a while.Source: Review copy from the publisher
    • 3/5
      Hemming has a very smooth style of writing and is very good at taking personal tragedies and making very good stories from them. In this one, a son is lost in an avalanche and Sarah, his mother must find a way to move on. I loved the character Jack, her father, his wisdom and his corny jokes. The characters are very assessable, real life people, dealing with real life situations. Her friend is coping with a cheating husband, and when a girl unknown to them arrives with a shattering proposition, her son's death becomes even more real. Her characters all have real depth to them and there is often humor which made me smile. Yes, humor in the wake of sadness, it happens even when dealing with the unfathomable. The use of dialogue is skillful and the revelations keep the book flowing. A realistic and good story, with poignant moments and many looks backwards. A chance at a different kind of life if only one has the courage. At the end Sarah shows she has just this kind of courage.
    • 3/5
      i loved the author's previous book (the descendants) so much that i was disappointed with this one. it was like she was trying too hard to make the characters seem witty.
    • 2/5
      I'm on page 116 of 288 of The Possibilities: This book is no Descendants.The Decendants had a lot going on: Would the wife die? Would the family confront the cheater? Would the family land be sold? In The Possibilities, the protagonist's son dies before the story begins. So far, we only hear of Sarah's interactions with a friend, her father, a few people at work, and a girl who may or may not have been the son's girlfriend. Not much action for being almost halfway. I might just drop it.
    • 4/5
      A young man dies in an avalanche and his mother tries to pick up the pieces of her life. But everything’s changed. All those possibilities promised for his future, and hers, are gone. There’s no purpose to a day-job advertising treasures he’ll never enjoy, or making jokes that can never be shared with him. The snow still falls but it’s not thick enough to shovel, and Sarah’s walking on ice.Author Kaui Hart Hemmings conveys her protagonist’s emptiness with powerful and humorous conviction. Even as Sarah tries to separate herself from shopping-channel father, divorcing friend, and super-happy co-worker, she finds she’s gaining insight into their lives. And maybe the shopping channel offers possibilities of its own in the shape of memories.Enter Kim to clear that fallen snow. Add an upcoming road-trip to mourn the son. Be gentle and smile when boarders pass your car. And be ready for spring.I wasn’t shocked. I’d guessed. But it doesn’t matter. The characters become so real that guessing’s just part of life, another thing you may or may not suggest to them over coffee. The Possibilities is a surprisingly uplifting novel, taking readers on a journey through grief, like winter, to a place where decisions are complex and the prospects are endless as they were at the beginning, at those first stages of lost son’s life.Disclosure: I was given an advance uncorrected proof and I offer my honest review.
    • 4/5
      Set in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Sarah St John, a morning television host, is grieving for her 22 year old son Cully. He was recently killed in an avalanche and Sarah is doing her best to cope without him. She seeks comfort from her rather indiscrete father who lives with her; from her best friend Suzanne, who is going through her own grieving process during her imminent divorce; and from Billy, Cully’s father. Billy left when Cully was very small and now has his own family, but he and Sarah are being drawn closer together through their shared grief.Then along comes Kit. She is carrying a secret, which when finally revealed causes each of those affected to re-address their beliefs and their desires.Told with dry humour and affection this tale of grief is unsentimental and engaging. It is a simple story, told well, with appealing characters and an emotional storyline.