Cammy Sitting Shiva

By: Cary Gitter

Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky

This stirring debut novel is an unflinching, darkly funny look at loss, family, and coming home—perfect for fans of This Is Where I Leave You and Competitive Grieving.

When Cy Adler dies, it’s a shock to everyone, especially his daughter, Cammy. Almost thirty, slightly aimless, and stuck in a basement apartment in Queens, she’s forced to return to River Hill, her one-square-mile New Jersey hometown, to sit shiva. Cammy’s fraught relationship with her mother, Beth, has never been easy. And now, with her beloved father gone, she would rather be anywhere but back in her childhood room, in a house filled with guests noshing on snacks and offering their condolences. So Cammy does whatever she can to make it through seven turbulent days of mourning.

Amid getting stoned, reconnecting with her best friend and her high school crush, evading the rabbi, and spending a debauched night in Atlantic City, Cammy must reckon with her roots—with the place she fled for the glamour of New York, where she thought she belonged. But is she really any better off than those she left behind? While navigating the swirl of emotions that accompany grief, Cammy also uncovers hidden truths about her father, which lead her to doubt how well she knew the man she adored. Then again, does she even know herself?

Fueled by wry, lively prose, Cammy Sitting Shiva is a deeply relatable fish-out-of-water story, grappling with how it feels to be adrift and to find that a hard trip home may be what it takes to anchor you.

©2025 Cary Gitter (P)2025 Spotify Audiobooks

Generational Trauma

This is not my normal non-fictional and historied authored tomes that I prefer, so I will admit to that bias.
I will also admit I am just younger than the protagonist’s mother.
I have admittedly done the same things at the same age and am much like the best friend. So take that bias as it is as well.
This is chic lit for book clubs. It is perfect for someone of that age who has not pursued to push the depths of what they can read. It is short. So there is that.
I would probably enjoy this as a light play. It has the usual tropes and story arches that facilitate that medium.
Or perhaps as a lite opera.

Great character development

Love the rich character development in this book. Also love the behind the scenes look at Cammy’s struggle.