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All You Could Ask For: A Novel
All You Could Ask For: A Novel
All You Could Ask For: A Novel
Audiobook9 hours

All You Could Ask For: A Novel

Written by Mike Greenberg

Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

All You Could Ask For, debut novel by Mike Greenberg, cohost of ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning, is a tender and insightful story of friendship and love, heartbreak and renewal, played out in the lives of three unforgettable women.

Brooke has been happily married to her college sweetheart for fifteen years. Even after the C-section, the dog poop, the stomach viruses and the coffee breath, Scott always winks at her in just the right moments. That is why, for her beloved, romantic, successful husband’s fortieth birthday, she is giving him pictures. Of herself. Naked.

Newlywed Samantha learns of her husband’s cheating heart when she finds the goods on his computer.

High-powered career woman Katherine works with heartbreaker Phillip, the man who hurt her early on in her career.          

Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don’t know each other, but their stories are about to intertwine in ways no one could have imagined.

And all three are about to discover the power of friendship to conquer adversity, the satisfaction of unexpected delights, the incredible difference one human being can have on other lives--and that they have all they could ask for, as long as they have each other.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateApr 2, 2013
ISBN9780062239815
All You Could Ask For: A Novel
Author

Mike Greenberg

Mike Greenberg is the cohost of ESPN's Mike and Mike, the highest-rated sports talk program in the United States, and the author of the New York Times bestselling books All You Could Ask For, Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot, and Mike and Mike's Rules for Sports and Life. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a native of New York City. He currently lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children.

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Reviews for All You Could Ask For

Rating: 3.8333333333333335 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Three very different women. Three very different lives. Brooke is the happily married mother of twins. Her husband is about to turn forty and she's decided to give him a gift he won't expect: tasteful nude photos of herself. Samantha is a young, adventurous, athletic woman on her honeymoon in Hawaii. Her husband is a politician and quite a bit older than she is. He's also cheating on her with a woman from his campaign as Samantha finds out when she logs onto his computer on the second morning of their marriage. Painful as that was, it freed her from a life and marriage that would have suffocated her. Katherine is a forty year old single career woman. She's wildly successful and filthy rich but she also tortures herself everyday by going to work for the man who broke her heart almost twenty years before. So she decides to take her first vacation ever and it changes her life and her goals. When the novel opens, Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine are each living their separate lives, in some cases working through disappointment and betrayal, but living fully. At the close of the first portion of the book, each of these three women is just at the cusp of feeling on top of the world, as if everything in their lives is almost perfect, that this very day is the happiest of each woman's life. And the reader knows there just isn't any way to sustain that. As the second part of the book starts, these three women, none of whom have ever met each other, are about to have their happy lives shattered by the same scary diagnosis, one that will connect them in ways they never wanted. Because all three feel alone and in need of people who understand, they all reach out to an online community to find connection, commiseration, advice, and hope. And because of their shared hometown, even though Samantha and Katherine no longer live there, Samantha, more at peace with her diagnosis and further down the treatment path, reaches out to the other two women to offer them whatever she can emotionally. And caring, supportive relationships develop between Samantha and Katherine as well as Samantha and Brooke even as they make vastly different choices about their treatment and about their futures. Focused on the strength of women's relationships and the importance of love and support, especially when faced with a life-altering diagnosis, the novel is pleasant but unspectacular. It took an inordinate amount of time to connect the women and while each of their back stories was important, especially their understanding of what they each wanted out of life, they took up too much of the novel since the meat of the story is meant to be the women's health battle and their coming together (even though Brooke and Katherine never do). As for the characters themselves, I have to admit I spent the entire book wanting to smack Brooke for all the flat cliches she represents. As for her husband never knowing of her diagnosis, well, apparently her husband doesn't ever look at their mail because here just a simple urgent care visit generates about ten insurance and facility related notices and bills as well as obvious activity online in our insurance and bank accounts. Just not altogether realistic. Samantha is chipper and upbeat all the way along and while that makes her a very sympathetic and likable character, her lack of any despair or grief causes her to come across as very one dimensional. Katherine seems to me to be the most fully human of the three women, running a gamut of emotions while still staying true to her character as portrayed. Over all, the writing is fairly pedestrian and there's a distinct lack of narrative tension. The reason behind writing the book and the cause it supports (cancer research) is phenomenal but unfortunately the actual book itself comes up a bit short in the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It took me awhile to start this book, mainly because of the topic. It was a very inspiring story. Yes, it was extremely sad overall. I am totally amazed that Mike Greenberg has a unique and authentic woman's voice - not what you would expect from a "Jock". Not only a woman's voice but 3 distinct voices of 3 totally different women who get the diagnose of Breast Cancer. Thank you for writing such a beautiful story so much more than just a diagnose- a story of friendship, support and love from perfect strangers who share a common link to a devastating diagnose.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good book for anyone involved in personal soul work.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This novel is an amazing accomplishment; a story of three unrelated women written by a guy who works at ESPN. To me, he gets the voices of the female characters quite well. Until the second half of the book, you don't know why we are reading the stories of these three lives. Powerful, moving. Made me bawl in a few places. And because I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country and have experienced some of these experiences, I get that I have all I could ask for. Kudos to Mike Greenberg.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book follows three women, Brooke, Katherine, and Samantha, in their parallel lives. Each woman is drastically different: Brooke has been happily married for years, Katherine is a single career woman, and Samantha has just been married two days when she discovers her husband is cheating on her; but they come together with a twist in the second half of the book. The story was written where each woman's section bled into the other, even though they didn't know each other at that point. Ex: They'll use the same phrase in totally different ways, or one character's cliffhanger will also work for another. It was just a fun little addition to the book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book years ago but I frequently remember stories and examples from it. One of the major insights that I gained from Thomas Moore is that there is a value to depression/sadness and that the only way out of it is to really go into it. I feel that reading this book helped me to deal with many events that came afterwards in a much more present way. There's much more to be said about this book but I've have to re-read it first!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    All You Could Ask ForByMike GreenbergMy "in a nutshell" summary...Three girls and their lives and the life altering way that they meet up and connect.My thoughts after reading this book...My first thoughts are that Mike Greenberg...the ESPN sports guy...wrote a lovely lovely book. It's profound and funny and unique and rather liberating. These three women could be any of our friends or family. They were strong and funny and brave and valuable. Their shared life altering experience made them appreciate life. They met in a unique way and helped each other in a unique way. It was truly lovely.But...there were also sexy bits and funny bits and touching bits. This author knew what he was writing about.What I loved about this book...It was lovely and touched my heart. It made me aware of struggles and life altering situations that can devastate our lives at any time. But that we have the power to survive.What I did not love...Health issues always freak me out but this book actually gave me some hope and a little piece of mind that if something happens you have to learn to be brave.Final thoughts...Dare I say chick lit with a message? I found this to be a book that shows true insight and bravery for some tough situations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What makes life worth living is not anything that might happen. It is what is happening right now. - from All You Could Ask For -Brooke is living the “perfect” life. She has twins and an amazing husband who loves her. She works hard to keep her marriage exciting – including hiring a photographer to take nude photos of her for her husband’s birthday.Samantha, married only two days, breaks into her new husband’s computer and discovers he has been and still is unfaithful to her. She immediately decides to stay in Hawaii (where they have flown for their honeymoon) and train for a triathlon.Katherine is wealthy and successful in her work – but she clings to a hatred and resentment for her boss who used to be her lover and who threw her over for another woman almost 20 years ago. When she travels to Aspen for her first vacation in years, the last thing she expects is to meet the man of her dreams.All three women who grace the pages of Mike Greenberg’s debut novel are different, and yet they will soon discover they have something in common. Something which will unexpectedly unite them, cause them to look deeply into their lives, and ultimately define what is most important to them.There has been a lot of buzz about All You Could Ask For. First of all, the novel is penned by a man who fully embraces his female side in creating characters women will like, if not relate to. Secondly, Mike Greenberg is the voice of ESPN ‘s Mike in the Morning and has promised to donate all of his profits from the book to The V Foundation for Cancer Research to combat breast cancer.The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Greenberg introduces his characters through alternating first person narratives. The second part is dedicated to how these three women come together, and Greenberg makes his novel modern by including social media as the uniting mechanism. This resonated with me, a blogger who has made a lot of friends through my blog, on line community events and book clubs, and Facebook. It is the second part of the book which really hooked me.Greenberg writes from a women’s perspective very well, although I will admit that I did not relate to all the characters. My least favorite character was Brooke who seemed almost a caricature of the perfect wife and mother. I longed for her to see herself as an individual, rather than an extension of her spouse. Samantha was the most likeable – she is the person every woman wants for a friend: loyal, giving, sincere. But my favorite character was Katherine who demonstrates a sarcastic wit and an inner strength I admired. Katherine is the character who grows the most from beginning to end. I wanted Katherine to realize all her goals and find love again.Nobody is living better than I am; I have a duplex on Park Avenue, a driver, a chef, an assistant, and a killer house in South Hampton, and I did it all on my own. But I still haven’t gotten past what happened with Phillip and I doubt I ever will, and I wish to god he was ten times more miserable than I am. If that sounds bitchy, I guess I don’t really care. - from All You Can Ask For -All You Could Ask For is fun women’s fiction, but it also has a deeper message about the decisions we make and how we determine our journey through life. Greenberg explores friendship within the context of the unexpected events which life throws in our path. Funny, poignant, and well-crafted, this is a novel which will appeal to a wide variety of women and the men who love them.Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Picked this book up from a book exchange shelf where I left a BookCrossing book. It's a relatively new publication, and the cover blurb sounded interesting. I absolutely loved the first half, stories of three strong women, who actually may not have known their strength, but come into their own. Loved how the author would finish a section on one, and segue, using the same phrases, into the story of another. These were funny, smart, strong, vibrant characters. Even more fascinating is that it was written by a man, but really felt "right". The second half of the book dealt with the circumstances that bring the three women together. That was harder for me to read (in fact, I did skim read some of it, because I'm a wuss.) It was indeed an interesting exercise, and I applaud Mr Greenberg, as a man, tackling a tought subject, in the writing of the book, the profits from which go to a foundation the author and his wife created for research to combat breast cancer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A truly remarkable book! Reading this book can change your life. It can make your life richer, help you remember your dreams, and prepare you to face death. Makes one realize how empty a world can be when one fails to nourish the soul. Along with Victor Frankel's book _Man's Search for Meaning_, this book should be essential reading for everyone who feels overwhelmed by the existential condition.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book changed my life. I met Thomas Moore and was as impressed by him as his work.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was a random pick from the library's paperback section. I should have left it there. It's really not a great novel. In fact, I nearly quit part way through Part 1, but Part 2 seemed like a bit of an improvement so I kept reading. None of the people in this book are anything like any people I know (or would want to know), and I suppose that's the main reason I didn't find the story at all interesting. On the other hand, if you're rich, smart, self-centred and successful and live in New York this could be just the book for you.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sports show host of Mike and Mike forays into the world of chick literature. He does this, he explains, because his wife had a close friend with cancer and his book tells the story of three women with a similar diagnosis. Before the midway part of the book when these women meet there are a series of one to two page vignettes in a seemingly endless rotation between the lives of the three women. It does settle down a bit after their stories become intertwined. This is a book that would appeal to someone who bores easily (adult ADD) and would prefer Cable Headline News as opposed to something that goes into more depth. That said it is creditable effort for a first time novelist and I give him bonus points for trying to be a "sensitive" man.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this book during my adult college days and it has become the focus or beginning point for me studying today's new spirituality. We are so far removed from the natural rhythm and the basics of life/living that we forget to just Be and remember what is truly vital and real to our experiences as human beings.Thomas Moore is a deep, reverant person and his writings allow us to see the sacredness in our everyday beingg and give us the incentive to try and allow the sacred to emerge and be honored as it does so.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Funny that this looks like a good read right now...can't figure why. I have had this book for several years and it always looked too mystical, like it would be quite impossible to relate to. Now, I have copied three pages of quote already and I am still in chapter one. It promises to look through the Renaissance window a lot, and refer to mythology, but still, I am rather enamored with it at this point. It makes me feel calm. Does that make sense.?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When I heard that Mike "Greeny" Greenberg wrote a book, I figured it would be a sports book. Then I heard it was a novel, so I thought, 'oh, a novel about sports.' Then I read the description- a novel about three women dealing with breast cancer. Wait, what?Greenberg had a friend who had breast cancer, and he was amazed that her three best friends, one of whom was his wife, surrounded this woman with constant love and never left her side. They went to her doctor appointments, her chemo treatments; they were with her at all times.This so impressed him, because he didn't think that men would be so present for their male friends. His friend succumbed to her cancer, and he wrote a novel about three women who each get a diagnosis of breast cancer. The proceeds from this novel go to the V Foundation in his friend's name to aid in cancer research. (The V Foundation is named after famed North Carolina State University coach Jim Valvano who lost his battle with cancer at age 46.)I can't believe a man wrote this book. Greenberg captures the voices of these three very different women so incredibly well, he must eavesdrop on women often. And take notes.Samantha is newly married to an older man and on her honeymoon in Hawaii. She is blissfully happy, ready to start her new life when she finds a photo of a naked woman on her husband's laptop.Katherine has just turned forty, a hard-charging career woman whose last serious relationship ended badly many years ago. Now the most important man in her life is her faithful driver Maurice. Her administrative assistant has set her up on a blind date with a handsome, eligible man- who happens to be twenty years older than her. How old does she think Katherine is anyway?Brooke is happily married to Scott, and mom to two children, living in the suburbs, trying to figure out what to get her husband for his birthday. She is a good wife, a good mom and likes her life.The first half of the book sets up each of these three interesting women's lives, all facing different daily challenges- work, home, family, loneliness. We become invested in them, and compare our lives to theirs.Then they each get a diagnosis of breast cancer. Each woman reacts differently, and the reader is left to ponder how they deal with her individual diagnosis. The women do not interact with each other in the first half of the book, but they later meet on breast cancer message boards and we are able read their messages to each other, and see their relationships develop.I had to admit I was skeptical about a novel some would call "chick-lit" about breast cancer written by a male ESPN host, but Greenberg does a terrific job here. I wanted to know more about these women's lives, and I found their reactions to their illnesses fascinating.They each respond differently, and the way one woman deals with it will probably cause some lively discussions in book clubs, for which this novel would make a good choice. It definitely made me think about how I would react, and upon reflection, it also made me try to be less judgmental of other women and the choices they make in the lives.