My Review of “The Cast ” by Amy Blumenfeld

My Review of “The Cast” by Amy Blumenfeld , GetRedPr Sparkpress August 14,2018

OMG! WOW! I loved everything about “The Cast” by Amy Blumenfeld.  Kudos to Amy Blumenfeld for her storytelling and her vivid descriptions and colorful cast of characters.  I was captivated and enthralled with this emotionally charged intense novel. The Genres for this  Novel are Fiction and Women’s Fiction. The story takes place twenty five years before in the past, and the present.

The characters in this story are complex, complicated, emotional, confused, loyal, and flawed, which adds substance to the story. Twenty five years ago, a group of ninth graders make a video to cheer up Becca, their classmate who has cancer, and is in the hospital. They make the video in the style of Saturday Night Live. This video is significant  throughout this story.

Now in the present, it is twenty-five years later, and the entire cast of friends are celebrating Becca’s life. A very good friend of Becca’s has made copies of DVD’s for each person as a gift of the original tape. Becca’s daughter enjoys watching this slap-stick comedy that her friends had put together.  What the friends don’t realize is that from all the radiation that Becca had, she now has a diagnosis of breast cancer, which seems to be contained with surgery.

Becca appreciates life and  knows she will have the surgery but is thinking long and hard about reconstructive plastic surgery and the complications. Her husband doesn’t understand Becca’s reaction. Becca’s husband also feels at time as an out-cast to the group of friends.

As the friends are to get together, each one has their own dramatic problems to deal with. Wrong decisions are made, and wrong conclusions are made. This is a novel that looks  at deep and loyal friendship that withstands time, and the ups and downs in life. I love and appreciate that the author brings up such a difficult topic of cancer with such dignity and class. She also discusses the importance of emotional support, family, friendship, forgiveness, love, faith and hope. I would highly recommend this novel to  readers that enjoy women’s fiction. There are some Kleenex moments. I received an ARC from NetGalley for my honest review.