View source for How We Met by Katy Regan

{{infobox1
|title=How We Met
|author=Katy Regan
|reviewer=Jo Heffer
|genre=Women's Fiction
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-0007237449
|pages=464
|publisher=Harper
|date=January 2013
|summary=There used to be six friends who did everything together – Liv, Fraser, Mia, Anna, Melody and Norm. They were inseparable until one tragic night in Ibiza when Liv died at the age of twenty eight. This is the story of how six became five and how each of the remaining friends attempts to come to terms with his or her loss and to try to carry on living.
|cover=0007237448
|aznuk=0007237448
|aznus=0007237448
}}
At the start of 'How We Met', a group of friends - Fraser, Mia, Anna, Melody and Norm - are all meeting up in order to celebrate their friend's birthday. There would be nothing unusual about this apart from the fact that the friend is dead. Liv died tragically after falling from a balcony when they were all on holiday in Ibiza. The remaining friends feel that they need to honour her birthday but of course it is going to be a poignant occasion. As they are remembering their friend, Norm produces something that he found in the pocket of a coat he once lent Liv. It's a list of all of the things that she wanted to do before she was thirty, such as, learn a foreign language, swim naked in the sea at dawn and go to an airport and pick a random destination to travel to! As it would have been Liv's thirtieth the following year, the group decide to share out and complete all the activities on the list as a tribute to their friend. 

The story follows the group through the next twelve months with them being driven somewhat by the list. Some things are easy to complete whereas others are much more difficult. The problem is that, the more they get caught up in the list, the more the cracks start to appear in their fragile friendships. Was Liv the linchpin that held them all together and is there a future for this group of friends now that six have irreversibly become five?

This is a very moving story particularly as, at its heart, is the tragic loss of a young person who had it all to live for. It raises the question of just how do you go on living when one of your best friends is dead. There are happy memories interspersed with disbelief, guilt and grief. Each of the friends deals with their emotions in different ways and seeing how they do this makes them feel very real. This is definitely the sort of book that makes the reader become caught up in the characters' emotions.

This is a story that is all about friendship and how that friendship can be tested to the limit when faced with a terrible tragedy. It's also about people of a certain age (facing thirty) and how they come to make life changing decisions.

Throughout much of the story there is an overwhelming sense of sadness although there are some lighter moments too. There's a group of Scrabble playing geriatrics that Fraser meets when he attempts to use up all seven letters in one go as that was one of Liv's aims. Overall though, it's probably not the best book to pick up if you are feeling a bit low and are looking for a light-hearted read. Having said that though, I did enjoy it and really liked the different characters that I met in the story.

Why not also take a look at [[The Child Inside by Suzanne Bugler]]?

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