"Rules for Visiting" by Jessica Francis Kane

"Rules for Visiting" by Jessica Francis Kane is the July pick for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club. It will be deeply relevant to many women without children, who experience what Jody Day has called a "friendship apocalypse" when their friends start having babies and life paths begin to diverge sharply. It's a book about friendship, family, trees and gardening, and the lingering impact of traumatic loss and grief.   

The premise: May Attaway -- a single, 40-year-old gardener and landscape designer, who lives at home with her widowed father -- is unexpectedly granted an extra month of vacation time/leave. May has very few friends, and decides to use her vacation time windfall to visit and reconnect with four once-close friends she hasn't seen in many years, who are scattered across the United States and in London, England. Interspersed between the chapters are some beautiful line drawings of various tree species, along with May's descriptions (which really aren't just about the trees). 

It took me a while to get into this book. May's narration is a little flat, especially at first, and takes a little getting used to. But once May began her round of visits, the story started to get more interesting, and all the various plot points came together in a lovely way by the end. I was a little teary by then.  

I'm glad I read this one. A solid 4 stars on both Goodreads & StoryGraph. 

This was Book #17 read to date in 2025 (and Book #1 finished in June), bringing me to 38% of  my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books."