The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

This is an easily approachable story centers around five friends — the Jordans (a gay couple), Naomi, Marielle and Craig — who first connect as transfer students at UC Berkeley when they’re assigned to the same dorm suite. Just weeks shy of graduation in 1995, Alec — the sixth member of their tightly knit group and the one known for his fondness for mixing ecstasy and ketamine — is found dead after an apparent overdose. Following Alec’s memorial service, the unmoored musketeers make a pact to stage “living funerals” for each other in future times of crisis. That way, unlike Alec, they can be honored, loved and celebrated while they’re still kicking. So a Big Chill theme with a more modern variety of friends and a slightly darker vibe. With such a setup at the outset, it’s not hard to guess how the book will unfold. Over the course of 30 years, each of the characters asks for a funeral at a particularly thorny point in their life: Marielle’s divorce at 39, for example, or Naomi’s parents’ death in a plane crash three weeks after her 43rd birthday. At these milestones, the crew pulls out all the stops, with wholehearted eulogies, free-flowing wine and memories of who and what they once were. Naomi has endless cash, so "how will we afford this" is not an undercurrent, nor is anybody else in their lives, for that matter. Despite some dark matters, it is largely light and overall enjoyable.