“Shriver has a gift for creating real and complicated characters… A highly engrossing novel.” — San Francisco Chronicle From New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver (The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin), comes a searing, deeply humane novel about a crumbling marriage resurrected in the face of illness, and a family’s struggle to come to terms with disease, dying, and the … to terms with disease, dying, and the obscene cost of medical care in modern America.
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I loved this epic vocabulary boost/healthcare insurance exposé/portrayal of realistic families & couples/witty/heartbreaking novel. A thoroughly modern vibe with sophisticated wit and so-sharp-you-may-get-cut dialog; but the Shep and Jackson characters frequently put me in mind of 2 classic novels I’d read long ago – The Fountainhead and The Winter of Our Discontent.
A writer of sorts myself, I so admire Lionel for the lyrical way she strings together words into sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and yes, even the totally believable, protracted diatribes of a lovable societal cynic … each of us can painfully relate to him on certain exasperating days.
I enjoyed Shriver’s honest portrayal of a family who are thrown a curve ball, in terms of a tragedy, and how they cope together. It also highlighted the nuances of the American healthcare system, and how a man’s dream is shattered, yet maintains his love for his embittered wife, whose illness effects everyone she knows.
Extremely vivid account of our insurance and medical treatment systems that is entirely terrifying. This is the all too real situation families in our country face every single day. Crash course on reality in fictional form. There is something to learn here, and even more to think about.
Credible
This book is one of the rare ones I have read more than once. The characters are realistic and likeable. One can almost feel the excruciating physical pain of the wife going through cancer, and her husband trying to support her knowing that he is giving up his life-long dream. This is one of those books that you keep thinking about long after you are finished reading it.
The book frankly describes the coping of seemingly simple people with “accidents” happening throughout their lives. All in all, the people in the story wanted to lead a reasonable family life and save enough money for their pension until all plans go wrong and disaster happens.
Two families described in the book, the Naker family and the Bordina family. Shepherd Naker was the owner of a renovation company, and Jackson Bourdina was his partner. For years, Sheppard has been planning his dream – to retire somewhere in the Third World with a sum of money that will allow him a peaceful and happy life. When he concludes that the trip cannot be postponed any more and intends to put an ultimatum for his wife, he must reject all plans and deal with the malignant disease that afflicts her. In the meantime, Sheppard’s father’s health deteriorated, and of course, the responsibility lay with him.
The Bordina family copes with the problematic and terminal genetic illness of their daughter, Felika. The disease destroys their family life, kills the couple’s life, and adversely affects the little sister, and the economic burden of caring for the sick girl puts the family into a whirl of debts.
It’s a hard-to-read book. The dilemmas mentioned are seemingly impossible yet they all a matter of day today.
Like Judy Pico, Shriver takes a problematic issue and tries to bring the dilemma to an endpoint. The other part is that Shriver doesn’t embellish reality.
I think Lionel Shriver is one of the best writers of our era , and this is one of my favorites
Always love when the underdog wins.
Enjoyable and sad. Very well written. Sometimes a little long winded.
So thought provoking and well written!
Simply incredible.
Definitely not a page turner but a nice read, Sometimes the dialogue gets boring as the characters get too much into their heads but it is a rich story about a couples’s life and a couple that is friends of theirs life. I wanted to yell, “shut up” sometimes, though.
Could not put it down. Incredible story, likable real-life characters, surprise twists. A bonus – this was vocabulary building!
Complex story line, very well written novel about family dynamics around cancer. Absorbing, interesting insight into politics, friendships and the hidden lives we want for ourselves. Surprising and joyful ending.
As someone whose husband has stage IV lung cancer, I have felt the things these characters are talking about. It is so real. If you ever want to know what having a life-changing illness, this is the book for you. It’s awful, but the book is superb.
Terrible book, simply hated it..would give no stars if possible.
complicated characters which i like. plan to read more of Lionel Shrivers work