Synopsis from the author’s website:

Just because you’d give your best friend everything doesn’t mean she has to take it.

On the heels of a divorce, all Danielle Meyers wants is her annual vacation with sassy, life-long best friend, Smidge — complete with umbrella cocktails by an infinity pool — but instead she’s hit with the curveball of a lifetime. Smidge takes Danielle to the middle of nowhere to reveal a diagnosis of terminal cancer, followed by an unusual request: “After I’m gone, I want you to finish the job. Marry my husband. Raise my daughter. I’m gonna teach you to how to be Smidge 2.0.”

As Danielle wrestles with this major life decision, she finds herself torn between being true to her best friend’s wishes and being honest with herself. Parenting issues aside, Smidge’s small-town Louisiana world is exactly the one Danielle made sure to escape. Danielle isn’t one for playing the social butterfly, or being the center of attention. And when your best friend tries to set you up on a date night with her husband, it might be time to become the bossy one for a change.

In the spirit of Beaches and Steel Magnolias, You Take It from Here is an honest, hilarious, and heartbreaking novel that ultimately asks: How much should we sacrifice for the ones we love the most?

I will admit, right up front, that I went into this book fully expecting to hate it.   To me it sounded like Wife Swap meets The Make A Wish Foundation and it just seemed like it was going to be a train wreck I couldn’t look away from.  I was deliriously giddy to read it so that I could rip it to shreds.  

Alas, I didn’t hate this book.  I really ended up liking it.  It started out a little rough for me, but I expect that’s mostly because I went into it with preconceived ideas of not liking it based on its premise alone.