Everything Happens For A Reason by Katie Allen

Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss.

When a misguided well-wisher tells her that ‘everything happens for a reason’, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by grief and convinced that she is somehow to blame. She remembers that on the day she discovered her pregnancy, she’d stopped a man from jumping in front of a train, and she’s now certain that saving his life cost her the life of her son.

Desperate to find him, she enlists an unlikely ally in Lola, an Underground worker, and Lola’s seven-year-old daughter, and eventually tracks him down, with completely unexpected results...

Both a heart-wrenching portrait of grief and a gloriously uplifting and disarmingly funny story of a young woman’s determination, Everything Happens for a Reason is a bittersweet, life-affirming and, quite simply, unforgettable read.

About the author.

Everything Happens for a Reason is Katie’s first novel. She used to be a journalist and columnist at the Guardian and Observer, and started her career as a Reuters correspondent in Berlin and London. The events in Everything Happens for a Reason are fiction, but the premise is loosely autobiographical. Katie’s son, Finn, was stillborn in 2010, and her character’s experience of grief and being on maternity leave without a baby is based on her own. And yes, someone did say to her ‘Everything happens for a reason’.

Katie grew up in Warwickshire and now lives in South London with her husband, children, dog, cat and stick insects. When she’s not writing or walking children and dogs, Katie loves baking, playing the piano, reading news and wishing she had written other people’s brilliant novels.

Review.

‘Everything Happens For A Reason’ is a haunting book that deals with an extremely difficult topic, one that is not often depicted in fiction and therefore it's all the more important to shout about this book. I can't imagine the pain that comes with having a stillborn baby, it must be all-consuming, alienating and extremely hard to come to terms with. Katie depicts all this in her book and more. It's a testament to her strength as a writer that she has managed to portray all this and much more. As this is also a highly funny book in places, especially when she goes on her quest to find out why and interacts with ‘the jumper’ and all his canine pals. I also loved Lola and her daughter as they brought so much light to the narrative.

I find it hard to write about this book and do it justice. I didn't really know what to expect from it as I just jump at the chance to review all books from come from #teamorenda but I feel privileged to have read this raw and important book. I read a review for it when I was logging it on Goodreads and it was from a woman who had been through the same situation and I urge you to read that one, as what she has to say as another survivor of this horrible situation is so much more important and valid than what I can waffle on about. All I can say was that this was an emotionally charged read for me. But it's the survivors whose voices need to be heard not mine.