A friend of mine suggested this book to me a couple of weeks ago. I put it on hold and let the library to do the rest. I started and finished it in the same morning (it was a very short book). Apparently length isn't everything. I was very impressed with it.
The whole novel is composed of notes left on a refrigerator door by a mother and her daughter. The mother is divorced and spends much of her time working at the hospital. The teenage daughter is caught up in her own world of school, friends and babysitting. They write notes back and forth, some short and some long, some lighthearted and some serious.
Before you jump to conclusions, I should mention that not all of their communication is done this way. Many of the notes make references to the time that they had spent together the previous night such as "Thanks Mom for dinner and movie last night."
The letters become more serious when the mother discovers that she has breast cancer. I thought that this was one of the more interesting ways to discuss this topic. What I most impressed with was how authentic the discussions felt. I'll admit that I haven't been a teenage daughter who watched her mother battle with breast cancer, but I have been affected by this horrible disease. My grandmother passed away four years ago after a courageous struggle with stomach cancer. Does anyone agree or disagree with my assesment of the authenticity of the book?
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6 comments:
I don't know about the authenticity of the book since no one in my family has cancer, and I usually enjoy books that are written through letters, but... I didn't connect with this book at all.
Interesting. Weren't you the one that suggested that I read this book?
I got this book from the library today, and finished it in under an hour. I found it thoroughly fantastic. I agree, Jake. I felt like the writing was incredibly authentic. It made me wonder about the author's history, because the discussions seemed very real to me.
Nope, it wasn't me, it was Brienne. I read it because of her suggestion as well. I suggested you read "Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable" which is definitely a book for people who love words, like vivacious (one of my favorite words.)
Ahhh...ok. Well, Minnow Pea is also sitting on my bedroom dresser. That one I couldn't get on audiobook, so it might take me a little longer to get through it. I'll start it as soon as I finish my current TRAX book Dragonfly. Have you read it?
I'll need an author to answer that question.
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