This Is Where I Leave You: A Novel

Great insight for family and grief while offering some humor. The writing is done well just wasn’t a huge fan of narrator aka main character.

this book was terrible! This author writes like a school child and the characters were boring and had no substance. I couldn't even donate this book, I threw it away!

I read this initially in 2012, a week after my grandfather passed away. It helped me mourn my loss and come to terms with how I'd left things between us. It means so much to me that I have the house on the cover tattooed on my forearm.

I'd never read anything by Tropper before, nor heard of him. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up this book. I am so so glad I did! It's funny, insightful, thought-provoking and sad. I fell in love with all the characters in this book. Tropper has a gift for making the characters extremely three-dimensional,and you'll find yourself laughing and crying right along with them. One of the most "human" books I have ever read, and one of those rare gems that make you never want to get to the last page. Wonderful!

Couldn't put it down. It was an in-depth look at an ordinary family after the death of the father. It was funny, touching, sad, joyful....it hit all the high and low points that ordinary people experience. The author developed the characters beautifully and before long you felt as if you knew them well. They were you....or someone you know.

To sit down with a Jonathan Tropper book is like inviting an old friend into your home, someone whom you cherish, someone you know can make you laugh out loud and make your cry like a baby with his wonderful stories. This Is Where I Leave You is no exception. Judd Foxman's father has just died after a long illness. But Judd's wife has recently left him because she's having an affair with Judd's boss. Consequently Judd has left his employer, quite understandable under the circumstances. As you can see, Judd has more than his share of things on his mind. Add on to this the fact that Judd's father's last wish was that the family sit Shiva. And not the three day kind that is currently more popular, but the entire week long Shiva. So Judd, his brothers Paul and Phillip, his sister Wendy and their mother, along with assorted husbands, wives, significant others and some small children all meet at the family home to begin a week long grieving process. Never a particularly affectionate or demonstrative family after the children grew up; this enforced closeness wears a bit on the nerves of those present. What follows is a wonderful story of family and all its foibles and its troubles--all the things that most families deal with. Jonathan Tropper is an incredible author. His writing is so clear, you can visualize every character. You know them; you went to school with most of them, you loved to talk about them behind their backs. Maybe you even married one of them. You love them or you hate them, but you most definitely do not feel indifferent to them. This is the kind of book you want to read with your best friend, sharing the laughter and the tears, quoting back great lines to each other. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a family, had a family, is part of a family, or may some day have a family. And isn't that all of us?

My wife handed me this book saying it was a *must read*. I started it immediately and found I could not put it down. "This is Where I Leave You" has to be the the most intense, funny, true to life piece of literature I have read in years. It is not only funny, but "laugh out loud" funny. In this novel, Tropper's writing style is sharp, biting, smart, sentimental, funny, and tender. He envisions the world the way most of us do, and expresses life with incredible wit and honesty. The story begins with the death of Mort Foxman. His death has reunited the Foxman clan for a week of sitting shiva. In the course of battling their own demons, and one another, each family member is called to reflect upon life events that have formed the basis of their lives together and their subsequent identities as individuals. The results are hilarious. I've heard that this book has already been optioned for a movie. With the right casting this story should prove to be an exceptional cinematic experience.

This is Where I Leave You is a wonderful book will make you laugh out loud and bring tears to your eyes--truly an incandescent story about love of all kinds and forgiveness. Judd Foxman is separated and heading towards divorce, unemployed, and living in a basement apartment, all of which are directly related to the affair his wife Jen is having with Wade, Judd's boss. Then Judd's father dies of cancer, leaving a final request that his entire family sit seven days of Shiva, and Judd and his siblings return to the suburban home where they grew up. During the seven days of mourning, a variety of family dynamics play out. The relationship between Judd and his brother Paul is dominated by old resentment, and awkwardness with the fact that Paul's wife is one of Judd's past high-school girlfriends. Judd's sister Wendy takes the opportunity of being home to reconnect with her past love, while Phillip, the baby of the family and chronic screw-up, brings home his much older fiancé. Judd's mother Hillary is a psychiatrist who wrote a bestselling book about parenting, and her infamous directness adds more tension and humor. While grieving for his father, Judd is also immersed in feelings of anger, betrayal, and helplessness brought on by the affair between Jen, his wife, and Wade, his boss. Once Jen tells Judd she is pregnant, Judd refuses to speak with her, leading both Jen and Wade to show up at Judd's childhood home, adding more complications and stress. It would spoil too much of the story to tell more about any of the funny parts, but there are many throughout the book. Simultaneously, the book is bittersweet as the family mourns the Dad they loved and take small steps to mending their own relationships. This is Where I Leave You is exceptionally well written with great character development and emotion, and is a book that deserves to be read by everyone.