This coming-of-age novel also encompasses themes such as the meaning of love, the effects of grief and loss, survivors' guilt, and developing a deeper understanding of our parents and the aging process. Katy dies at an early age, but the effects of her death go on for decades.
Some interesting and memorable quotes:
"I was a survivor...I had proof that we were all, in the end, exactly the same, and that anyone who pretends differently is lying.. and thinking of this- made me feel like I could say or do anything." (p.106)
"...now that you were dead, we could say anything we wanted. No swear word was ever going to be as terrible as 'dead'"(p. 111)
"That's what happens when parents die... All of a sudden, you want an answer to every question you never thought to ask them." (p. 321) ( )

Feels to me like a well done MOR family drama/romance, the sort that you might expect to feature a cover blurb from People magazine. (Seinfeld)Not that there’s anything wrong with that.(/Seinfeld) Occasionally it threatened to get INTERESTING but would then snap right back into adult contemporary. Highly readable but not really a match for me. ( )

Excellent book about loss grief love and families. Did we need a psychic in the mix. Loved the main characters. ( )

Grief and guilt come together like a matched set. Where there's one, there's usually the other. So it is in Alison Espach's impressive first novel “Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance” (2022).

Although written in the style of a comic novel, the story rarely turns comic. The novel covers 15 years in the life of Sally Holt, who addresses her narrative to her older sister Kathy.

At first, 13-year-old Sally observes Kathy's infatuation with Billy, the handsome high school basketball star. Eventually Kathy wins Billy away from another girl, and Sally is almost as thrilled as her sister is. Then one day Sally demands Billy take her to her school, even though it risks making Billy and Kathy late for high school. Billy speeds, avoids a deer and hits a tree. Kathy dies in the crash, and Billy is badly injured, his promising basketball career ruined.

Thus grief and guilt overpower both Sally and Billy, not to mention the girls' parents. Having so much in common, the two teens are drawn to each other, despite their age difference. They hold long phone conversations in the middle of the night.

Years pass. Billy decides to become a friar. Sally moves to New York City, begins writing how-to essays for web sites and becomes engaged to a lawyer. Espach tells how she and Billy are brought back together by a hurricane — named Kathy.

Partly autobiographical, the novel holds power in part because of the author's deceptive light touch but mostly because it tells truth. ( )

When Sally Holt was eleven years old, her sister, Kathy, died in a car accident while Sally rode in the back and Kathy’s boyfriend, Billy, drove. Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach looks back on the events leading up to the crash and the impact on Sally’s life and family with an interesting narrative structure of Sally speaking directly to Kathy. It feels confessional and Espach really captures Sally’s voice and creates a complex character struggling with grief but wanting more. Notes is an excellent book about family, grief, forgiveness, and growing up that manages to find humor and love in the pain. ( )