Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. The dialogue at times also felt very off. I'm not quoting exactly, but there is one point after a big reveal where a character responds not with the expected indignation, sadness, or anger, but with an (almost cheerful) "Wow. You've given me a lot to chew on!" which just felt so insincere and out of place it almost took me into eye-roll territory. I understand these characters needed to be unlikable on some level (and truly, all of them are in one way or another) but I think if they had felt more realistic I could have overlooked some of the frustration with their (very stupid) decisions. This book seesaws between middle grades and YA in the most delicious of ways. Sometimes middle grades stories with dark and emotional content trot out unrealistically optimistic endings. I’m so thrilled that Karen English didn’t do that for the story or for the characters. She gives the reader reasons to be optimistic for Lily and for Sophie by the end of the story, but she by no means assumes that their issues are going to disappear.

You must have. But chemo brain, you know. Okay. I’m going to find the pipe and try it. I hope if the neighbors smell the smoke, they won’t give me any trouble about it.” Until exhaustion and pain had made it impossible to continue, in retirement Marti had been volunteering at Mount Sinai Beth Israel three mornings a week, responding to patient call buttons when the nurses were busy, and keeping lonely people company while they recovered from illnesses and surgeries. Her days had been as full as she wanted them to be, and who could ask for more? No one got to live forever. Her sweet, adored Leo had made it only to sixty-six.It is worth noting that the Greek word for doubt here refers more to a hesitation to believe rather than an unbelief. This may have been like the situation when Thomas needed to confirm that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

On the other hand, the story is told from Sophie’s point of view, and Sophie’s concerns are more the stuff of middle grades (friendships, pool parties, auditioning for the part), so reader has Sophie as a layer to Lily’s more mature social and sexual politics. This layer is helpful when, for example, Sophie discovers her father’s infidelity, and we have the opportunity to see Sophie’s reactions and Lily’s reactions separately. Sophie doesn’t understand why her father would have a girlfriend who isn’t as pretty as her mother is, while Lily seems more in touch with her parents’ relationship dynamics. Older readers will probably “read” and relate more to Lily’s story, and readers who aren’t ready for that part will probably connect more to Sophie. This author knows how to create deeply complicated and complex characters and this story is absolutely loaded with them. I may have not liked all of them but each of them contributed meaning to the larger story.Relatively speaking, I’m a newbie to audiobooks. I first listened to one in January 2022, less than a year ago, and while I’m a fan, I often find them more difficult to rate and review than books in print. Particularly when it comes to audiobooks that I don’t love because I seem to inevitably wonder: would I have enjoyed the book more had I read it instead of listened to it? Could the narrator have not been to my liking rather than the book itself? It’s hard to know. It All Comes Down to This, Therese Anne Fowler’s latest family drama, is the perfect example of my conundrum. It’s a story of three sisters who have recently lost their mother, all of whom are struggling to rearrange their lives after her death. The story is compelling enough. The narrator, Barrie Kreinik, did an adequate job of bringing the characters to life. Yet I found I was never fully engrossed in the story.