Authors I love to read and listen to (in podcasts) are ones like Father Richard Rohr, Brené Brown, Anne Lamott, and lately Kate Bowler. There’s a quality to all of these writers that is so real and honest. They’ve been in the trenches and are wise about how to dwell and lean into life, love, and pain. They encourage us to cut back on easy answers and self-help Kool-Aid, and teach us what it means to be human. In the undertaking of difficult subjects, there’s vulnerability and humour and deep empathy. And sometimes we feel better and find our way again, and sometimes we don’t, and that’s ok.
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is a debut novel with this quality and some richly drawn characters. Lenni is a teenager hospitalised with a terminal illness. There she meets octogenarian Margot and they develop an unlikely friendship through a project they undertake together. Funny and heartbreaking at the same time, this book is about living life to the fullest, even when there doesn’t seem to be much life left.
Cronin’s writing skill makes this moving, but not maudlin. It’s an unsentimental and unflinching journey into pain and loss and friendship and love, that hits a real and honest tone.
Joanne's Reading Blog 
I have this book on my shelf and planning to read it this summer. And I enjoy the same podcasts. The trick is to balance my listening time and reading time.