The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer (2012)

I was looking for a California book to listen to while I was driving in California, so I picked this up - but it was too California for me, too southern CA to be specific. Since I have already given up on two books this year, I thought I would stick it out and see what the author had to say. Hannah works in the reality TV industry, but when her wonderful husband John is killed in a car accident and leaves her with 3 year old daughter Ellie, she loses it. Understandable after such a devastating loss, but somehow I could never quite feel empathy for this woman. She was funny in a way that is not funny to me. Her trio of friends - one earth mother, one aging starlet, one gay TV producer with a highly developed sense of style just did not appeal to me, felt too stereotypical, though they did stick by her side until she finally started pulling out of depression.  The kind of things they choose to do together, which Hannah doesn't enjoy - like going to a spa for cleansing on New Year's just left me baffled. The part that kept me reading was that Hannah could talk to ghosts. In her grief she becomes open to spirits of the deceased. I was wondering where the author would take this. I did enjoy the fact that she changed some people's lives for the better when she gave them messages from deceased loved ones. But though I believe the spirits of loved ones stay around for a bit after they have died, her spirit world was too corny for my tastes. My short trip to LA and SF reminded me that what I love is northern CA and northern Californians - they still wear tie died sundresses, etc. I enjoyed all the people I met, but the world reflected in this book reminds me that I don't want to live in southern California.