Alison Hammer’s ‘You and Me and Us’ Plucks at Our Heartstrings and Fuels Us with Hope [REVIEW]

One family will spend one last summer at their favorite beach as they struggle to reconnect before life changes forever. (Photo by Canva)

A workaholic mom. A doting dad. A teenage daughter making plans for the future. Life as usual is busy and complicated, filled with school and jobs and the day-to-day challenges of family. When an unexpected piece of news throws a wrench in all their lives, it tests  their mettle and the strength of their familial bond. How will they navigate life once the rug has been pulled out from under their feet? Find out in Alison Hammer’s debut novel, You and Me and Us.

William Morrow

Alexis Gold is the quintessential working mom. She’s always juggling the various balls life throws her way, although she does have a tendency to put too much emphasis on work and never enough on being a mother. But achieving a work-life balance isn’t easy when  you are trying to launch an advertising agency fueled purely by girl power.

For the past three years, home has been more her partner Tommy’s responsibility. He’s awesome, her biggest cheerleader, despite being an online therapist and dad to their ninth grader, Cece. To say that she’s a daddy’s girl is an understatement, but the bond between father and daughter has only gotten stronger since Alexis is MIA much of the time due to the constant pressures of her job.

Life only gets tougher though when Tommy is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Suddenly the career Alexis has put ahead of everything else just isn’t that important anymore, and she can’t fathom how she will press on without Tommy there by her side. Determined to make Tommy’s final summer one to remember, she puts her career on hold and takes him to “their” beach in Destin, Florida. But putting his wishes first goes against her grain, since it also means putting her family in the path of Tommy’s ex, an actress CeCe idolizes.

Everything isn’t all about Alexis though. Cece is also unraveling. She’s already at that stage where so many girls begin going toe-to-toe with their mom. She’s also dealing with her first real romance, her dreams of becoming an actress, and navigating the high school social scene. Now her daddy is sick, and it is almost more than she can deal with.

Losing Tommy is hard. But watching her daughter go off the rails, Alexis knows that reaching her daughter and bridging the chasm between them may just be as insurmountable a situation to deal with. Is she up for the challenge?

You and Me and Us is one of those novels we know we’re going to cry over before we even pick it up. Yet from page one, it is also one of those stories that plucks at our heartstrings, luring us deeper and deeper into the plot with all the hypnotizing power of a siren song. Certainly the loss of a spouse and father is a difficult topic for any of us to consider. And the survival of mother and daughter is also fraught with complications, emotion, and hazards along the way. Yet there is beauty and humor within their struggle, and the hope and determination it inspires within the reader is exactly what the world needs now, which makes it a compelling read even in the midst of a pandemic where many of us are living with fear and uncertainty and may be dealing with loss ourselves.

Alison Hammer is a debut author, but she writes with all the heart and wisdom of a seasoned writer and is an old soul who sees the world through a sage’s eyes. Her writing shines here as she deftly wields her pen to both fracture our hearts and then heal them with compassion and wit. If you enjoy beloved stories like Iris Rainer Dart’s Beaches and Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias, you’re going to love this book. It is filled with great characters, wonderful friends, and truly delicious banter that will make you laugh through your tears. All in all, she has written a true winner, a novel we can’t recommend enough and are delighted to deliver as our latest diamond review title. Enjoy!

Alison Hammer
(Photo by Will Byington)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Founder of the Every Damn Day Writers, Alison Hammer has been spinning words to tell stories since she learned how to talk.

A graduate of the University of Florida and the Creative Circus in Atlanta, she lived in nine cities before settling down in Chicago, where she works as a VP creative director at an advertising agency.

You and Me and Us is her first novel.

To find out more about the author, visit AlisonHammer.com, like her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

YOU AND ME AND US
By Alison Hammer
432 pp. William Morrow. $17.99

Purchase You and Me and Us directly from Jathan & Heather’s Beach Reads Book Shop or at one of these other fine online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Half Price Books, HarperCollins, IndieBound, and Powell’s.

You and Me and Us is brought to you in association with TLC Book Tours.