The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons

The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons

372 pages

Published September 2020 by William Morrow

Publisher's Summary: 

It's never too late to start living.

Eudora Honeysett is done with this noisy, moronic world--all of it. She has witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age and has lived a full life. At eighty-five, she isn't going to leave things to chance. Her end will be on her terms. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland, a plan is set in motion.

Then she meets ten-year-old Rose Trewidney, a whirling, pint-sized rainbow of sparkling cheer. All Eudora wants is to be left alone to set her affairs in order. Instead, she finds herself embarking on a series of adventures with the irrepressible Rose and their affable neighbor, the recently widowed Stanley--afternoon tea, shopping sprees, trips to the beach, birthday celebrations, pizza parties.

While the trio of unlikely BFFs grow closer and anxiously await the arrival of Rose's new baby sister, Eudora is reminded of her own childhood--of losing her father during World War II and the devastating impact it had on her entire family. In reflecting on her past, Eudora realizes she must come to terms with what lies ahead.

But now that her joy for life has been rekindled, how can she possibly say goodbye?

My Thoughts: 

When I say I'm on a roll reading about older ladies with attitude, this is my latest example (following Three Days In June, The Little Village of Book Lovers, Remarkably Bright Creatures, and The Life Impossible). My sister recommended it to me but when I first picked it up, I was afraid it was too soon after my last book about a cranky old woman. But I needed to get books back to the library so I picked it up again and soon was drawn in to Eudora's story. 

Eudora is the reason the saying "You never know what someone is going through, so be kind." She has very little patience for people any longer and even less time for them. She's getting older and slower and has no family. She's ready for life to be done and she's desperate to go out on her own terms. There's a part of me that never stopped believing she was right to feel that way, especially when she expected to be all alone at the end. 

But Rose didn't see Eudora as an old woman whose time was about over. She understood that Eudora was old, but it never occurred to her that Eudora wouldn't be around for her as long as she needed her. I felt the same way about my mom so I could certainly understand how a ten-year-old would feel that way. Rose saw in Eudora someone who could be a friend and ally. But Eudora hadn't had a friend in a very long time, nor family or love in almost as long and she certainly wasn't looking for any of those things when Rose first showed up on her door. But Annie Lyons wants readers to understand that friends can be any age and family can be the people we choose to care about. 

Eudora had been hurt a lot in her life and disappointed by so many people. It was hard for her not to expect that from her new friends and even harder to believe that those people would be there for her until the end. So she never gave up on her desire to go to Switzerland and end her life on her own terms. And I came to believe that was exactly how this book would end, that having developed those friendships and that makeshift family, Eudora could do what she wanted to do without regret. 

The night before I finished this book, it had gotten late. I had only about ten pages left to read but I had to get to sleep. So I finished this one while I had my morning coffee. Big mistake. Those of you who have been around for a long time will know that while a lot of books have really impacted me emotionally, few have made me cry. This one did. It's the kind of ending that is both sad and uplifting. And now I have to read something completely different because I want to let this one sit with me for a while. 

Decluttering At The Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle With Stuff by Dana K. White

Decluttering At The Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle With Stuff by Dana K. White

240 pages

Published February 2018 by Nelson, Thomas Inc. 

Publisher's Summary:

While the world seems to be in love with the idea of tiny houses and minimalism, many of us simply can't purge it all and start from nothing. Yet a home with too much stuff is difficult to maintain, so where do we begin? Add in paralyzing emotional attachments and constant life challenges, and it can feel almost impossible to make real decluttering progress.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, decluttering expert and author Dana White identifies the mindsets and emotional challenges that make it difficult to declutter. In her signature humorous approach, she provides workable solutions to break through these struggles and get clutter out—for good!

Not only does Dana provide strategies, but she dives deep into how to implement them, no matter the reader's clutter level or emotional resistance to decluttering. She helps identify procrasticlutter—the stuff that will get done eventually so it doesn't seem urgent—as well as how to make progress when there's no time to declutter.

In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, Dana’s chapters cover:

• Why You Need This Book (You Know Why)
• Your Unique Home
• Decluttering in the Midst of Real Life
• Change Your Mind, Change Your Home
• Breaking Through Your Decluttering Delusions
• Working It Out Room by Room
• Helping Others Declutter

As long as we're living and breathing, new clutter will appear. The good news is that by following Dana’s advice, decluttering will get easier, become more natural, and require significantly fewer hours, less emotional bandwidth, and little to no sweat to keep going.

My Thoughts: 

You may well be wondering why someone who has read so many books about decluttering, done 40 Bags In 40 Days so many times, and who follows multiple organizing/simplifying accounts on social media would need to read yet another book about decluttering. Fair enough. Even I wondered why I was checking out another book about decluttering. But Myquillen Smith, the Cozy Minimalist, recommended it and she recommended this one as one of her favorites. So here we are. 

And guess what? 

I learned a different way to view and attack decluttering. Some of what White says goes entirely against what I've learned before but I can certainly see the logic of it, especially for those who are new to decluttering. 

White speaks from experience; while she may not have met the dictionary definition of "hoarder," she started married life in a house that already had too much in it when two complete households merged with no reduction in "stuff." White is a person that can't pass up a good bargain and held on to things because they "might" be useful in the future. Then kids came along, items were inherited, hobbies came and went. She knows how hard it is to start the process and how much it takes to change a mindset. 

Thus was born a desire to reset her life and along the way she has developed a system that worked for her and has now worked for thousands of others. White hosts a podcast, writes a blog, and is the author of three books. She's speaks from her own experience and those of people who have reached out to her. 

Here's what differed in her approach from other approaches I've learned about: 

• She advocates using the Visibility Rule: start with the most visible spaces first. White advises this will ensure the results of efforts will be visible which will inspire readers to keep going and increase decluttering energy. 
• She does not advocate emptying a space, because you might lose steam part way through the process and end up with a bigger mess than you started with or become so overwhelmed that you just stop. 
• She does not, in this book at least, correlate decluttering with organizing. White wants it to be clear that you cannot even think about organizing until after you have completely decluttered and maybe not even then. Perhaps just keeping things decluttered will be enough, using her steps, to keep things relatively organized. 

In every space White recommends readers follow five steps: 

• Step 1: Trash - this one is self-explanatory and the easiest of the steps. Start with the most visible mess and do as much as you can in the time you have. 
• Step 2: Do The Easy Stuff - "Easy stuff is the stuff that has an established home somewhere else." What's different for me in this step is that White advocates taking each thing you find that's out of place to the correct place immediately; she suggests that putting in a box to handle later causes a potential new problem. 
• Step 3: Duh Clutter - these are things that you immediately can see need to be donated. 
• Step 4: Ask the Two Decluttering Questions - 
• #1 - If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Take it there immediately. 
• #2 - If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already had one? This might be something you use so rarely that you forget you own it and buy another without thinking to look for it. 
• Step 5: Make It Fit - like other decluttering experts, White urges readers to think of their spaces as containers. Your home is a container; each room, each closet, each cupboard, each drawer is a container. First consolidate the things you've been left with after the first four steps and then purge down to the limits of the container. 

White takes readers through each of these steps, room by room, including hobby rooms and storage spaces. She talks about having to declutter dreams (the hobby you'd been so excited to start, the baby clothes when it becomes clear there will be no more children). There is a section on helping others, including friends, children, and spouses (sadly, there was no magic trick to get your spouse on board) and another section on decluttering when you have to do it all (moving, elderly parents). Finally, she talks about how decluttering has to become a lifestyle, that it is something that you will always need to keep doing. Which is just what I needed to hear - I so often feel that I am failing when I am once again decluttering areas that I have decluttered again and again. Some of the advice here is old news to me and some of the steps won't be necessary for me in most spaces. But I'm definitely going to try using this system in some areas that have confounded me over the years. Wish me luck! 

All You Have To Do Is Call by Kerri Maher

All You Have To Do Is Call by Kerri Maher

Read by Lauryn Altman

13 hours, 15 minutes

Published September 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Chicago, early 1970s. Who does a woman call when she needs help? Jane.
 
The best-known secret in the city, Jane is an underground health clinic composed entirely of women helping women, empowering them to embrace their futures by offering reproductive counseling and safe, illegal abortions. Veronica, Jane's founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others' freedom is that she leads a double life. When she's not at Jane, Veronica plays the role of a conventional housewife-a juggling act that becomes even more difficult during her own high-risk pregnancy.
 
Two more women in Veronica's neighborhood are grappling with similar disconnects. Margaret, a young professor at the University of Chicago, secretly volunteers at Jane as she falls in love with a man whose attitude toward his ex-wife increasingly disturbs her. Patty, who's long been content as a devoted wife and mother, has begun to sense that something essential is missing from her life. When her runaway younger sister, Eliza, shows up unexpectedly, Patty must come to terms with what it really means to love and support a sister.
 
In this historic moment, when the personal was nothing if not political, Veronica, Margaret, and Patty risk it all to help mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. With an awe-inspiring story and appealing characters, All You Have to Do Is Call celebrates the power of women coming together in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

My Thoughts: 

It didn't take me very long to figure out why my friend had recommended this book to me. She is well aware of my feelings about this subject and knows how I love a book that ties the past to events currently happening. 

She also knows how much I love to learn something new when I'm reading. Here I learned about the Jane Collective which was, according to Wikipedia, an underground service in Chicago, affiliated with the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, which sought to address the increasing number of unsafe abortions performed by untrained providers. As in the book, the service was started by a woman who went with another woman when she got an abortion and then began helping other women to get safe abortions. Eventually, when demand became too great for her to handle alone, she brought in others to help. Eventually, many of the women in the collective learned how to do D&Cs so that they could provide services to women who were too poor to afford other services and to women of color. 

In this book, we see the toll that kind of work would have had on the women involved. At a time when abortion was illegal, secrecy was paramount as so much was at stake. None of it would have been possible without the bond the women involved created, a great deal of strategy to keep things as secret as possible, and the help of officials and medical professionals who supported the work. It was a great deal of stress and we see how that plays out in the lives of these women, both those who provide the service and those who need to use it. 

The book is filled with interesting relationships between women: Veronica's with Patty, who doesn't know about Veronica's work and wouldn't support it; Siobhan's relationship with Veronica as they work together to provide the kind of care that Siobhan didn't get; Margaret's relationship with Phyllis, the work colleague who opens Margaret's eyes to life as a black person at that time and to the group she has become so passionate about helping; and Patty's relationship with Eliza, the sister who disappeared after their father died and who balks at Patty's attempts to mother her. 

To an extent, Maher is preaching to the choir with this book - I don't know that any reader who isn't already open to the idea would pick it up and have their mind changed. But I loved learning this history and being reminded of what life will once again be like for so many women if the country returns to a time when safe abortions are no longer legal. Kudos to Maher for tackling this piece of history. 

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

304 pages

Published January 2024 by St. Martin's Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

***Spoilers***

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, his uncle’s death pulls Cam and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but the legacy of Ruby is inescapable.

And as Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will––and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.

My Thoughts: 

If you want to get the full enjoyment out of this one, DO NOT READ the publisher's summary. I only give it to you so that if you're someone who really, really needs to know what the book's about, you'll have it. But if you're someone, like me, who likes to go into a book completely blind (other than to know that someone thought you'd like it), that summary ruins some of the fun of the book early on. 

I can't remember who recommended this one to me - if it was you, thank you! 

So...if you can't read the publisher's summary, and I can't really tell you, either, how will you know if you want to give it a shot? Maybe this will help - this is what I liked about it: 

• Hawkins litters the book with reveals (which is, of course, why it's impossible to write a synopsis without giving something away. 
• It's told from three perspectives: Jules, her husband Camden, and letters from his deceased mother. That made me race through to get back to Jules' story, or Ruby's letters, or Camden's story. 
• Everyone of the three has secrets to reveal and Hawkins keeps them coming right up until the end of the book. 

Perhaps:

• Some readers will find it predictable (although I certainly didn't)
• Some of the characters are stereotypes
• The ending fell a little flat for me. 

In the end, none of that mattered. It kept me entertained and I raced through it. It was just the right book at the right time. 

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist 

Read by Shauna Niequist

4 hours, 44 minutes

Published August 2016 by Zondervan

Publisher's Summary: 

A few years ago, Shauna found herself exhausted and isolated, her soul and body sick. She was tired of being tired and burned out on busy. It seemed like almost everyone she talked to was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, and depth, but settling for busy.

But then something changed. She decided to trade the hustle and bustle for grace, love, stillness, and play, and it changed everything. Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people who matter most to us.

As you witness Shauna's journey, you'll be inspired to embark on one of your own. She gives you the encouragement you need to:

Put an end to people-pleasing tendencies
Embrace moments of simplicity, quiet, and stillness
Accept that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy

Written in Shauna's warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.

My Thoughts: 

One of my coworkers is going through very similar situations with some family members as I have been going through with my dad and through the same work environment. We've had a lot of conversations about the mental, and even physical, toll it has taken on us. She is also a big reader so we often exchange book recommendations. I have never disagreed with her about any book she has recommended to me (although she was not a fan of Lone Women, which she learned about from me; but, in my defense, I told her I liked it but I did not recommend it as something she might like!). So when she came into work one day, excited about this book and already putting Niequist's recommendations into practice, I immediately requested it from the library. 

One thing I immediately realized was that Niequist leaned heavily into her religious beliefs through her journey. I am no longer what I would call "religious;" rather I would say that I am "spiritual." So I did have to adapt what Niequist was suggesting regarding prayer and turning things over to God into something that I could relate to and use in my own way. In some places, that was harder to do than others. Those of you who are religious will find that Niequist recommends what so many others have done - turn your life over to your god and believe that they will create that outcomes that are right for you. For me, that means acknowledging that some things are simply out of my hands and that my higher power will be there for me regardless of the outcome. 

Niequist has a lot of famous friends, Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Doyle among them. As I'm fans of both of those folks, their praise of Niequist makes me appreciate that her ideas might just work for me. Saying "no." Cancelling when you need to do so. Making your life easier.

I'd like to tell you that, when I was finished, I stopped worrying about how clean or cluttered my house is and just decided that I would learn to live with what I could do with the time and energy that I have after I've done the things that have to be done. I haven't. But I have given myself permission to not do things simply out of guilt or a need to prove myself worthy of love and respect (ok, I'm doing that some of the time; it's a work in progress). One day that may mean the end of this blog. It's work to keep up and I'm not getting the interaction I used to get out of it (that's on me as much as anyone but it's a fact) which makes it less fun than it once was. I may even learn to say "no" to my kids one of these days.

The Dry - Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper

Published January 2017 by Flatiron Books

Read by Stephan Shanahan 

10 hours

Publisher's Summary: 

After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn't tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there's more to Luke's death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.

My Thoughts: 

People have been talking to me about Jane Harper's books for a while; but they aren't, as a general rule, the kind of books that I usually pick up. Still, someone (my aunt?) recommended this one to me as the place to start; and, as I'm finding myself more drawn lately to books out of my usual comfort zone, I decided to pick it up. 

This is one of those books that I'm sure I would have enjoyed had I read it in print. But I'm glad that I listened to it instead. Shanahan does a terrific job as reader, handling both male and female voices well, and adding a layer of tension to a book that is already tension filled. 

Falk has returned for Luke's funeral because of a note he received from Luke's father, which said that he knows that Luke and Aaron lied about what happened 20 years ago. What exactly does Luke's father want from Falk? Is he threatening to reveal something that will ruin Falk? Does he not buy the theory that his son killed his own family and himself because of financial worries caused by the extreme drought and need Falk to find the truth? Or is he afraid that the truth about what really happened twenty years ago explained what Luke did? Falk soon finds himself wonder the same thing. He knows that the alibi Luke provided him was a lie but wonders if Luke was actually trying to cover up something he did. 

As with most small towns, many of the people Falk knew twenty years ago still live in Kiewarra and they have not forgotten what happened to the young girl, Ellie, whose death Falk was accused of having caused. With few people he can trust, Falk must use all of his investigative skills to solve the death of his friend's family as quickly as he can. 

Harper keeps things moving along at a rapid pace and fills the book with plenty of leads that have those trying to solve the case (and readers) chasing off in entirely new directions. There's not a lot of time to delve deeply into the characters; except, perhaps, the biggest character in the book, the land. Harper does a terrific job of painting the isolation, the desperation, and the incredible dryness of the area. The setting is vivid. I raced through this book, finding any time I could to listen to a few more minutes. I'm certain that I'll be reading more of the Aaron Falk series. And I'll be looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation, starring Eric Bana, which is available on Amazon Prime. 

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

320 pages

Published April 2018 by Algonquin Books

Publisher's Summary: 

For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work—and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew—he knows that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how? 

 In this funny, angry, touching, and ultimately deeply inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man on a journey to discover himself, a search to find the secret to achieving the American dream of happiness and prosperity. That’s the birthright for all Americans, isn’t it? If so, then what is Mike Muñoz’s problem? Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can’t seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it. And it’s looking really good.

My Thoughts:

It's been a while since I share with you what Mama Shepp's Family Recommends so you may not remember that there are a lot of readers in  my family. In fact, my Rhode Island aunt is also in a book club and she and I enjoy talking about what each of our bookclubs is reading. Recently she mentioned that she was reading Jonathan Evison's Lawn Boy and not much enjoying it. By the next week, when she had finished the book, her opinion had turned around and she was recommending it. So I immediately requested it from the library...because if it goes on the TBR list, it might never see the light of day again. 

My experience with the book was very much the same as was my aunt's. A story about a young man struggling to make it in the world and find his way initially intrigued me and then, for me, devolved into a ceaselessly depressing read as things went from bad to worse for our protagonist. The humor began to fade and I became so disappointed in the bad decisions Mike made that it was hard to feel sorry for the bad luck he was experiencing. I began to despair that I would not round the corner that my aunt had. And then...there we were, on the other side. Things began to fall into place. The easy but questionable paths shut down for Mike but pushed him down a path that would lead him in the right direction to turn his life around. Then I could return to the feeling that I'd had in the beginning of the book, that life is stacked against so many people and choices are so limited that it's all but impossible for them to lift themselves out of poverty. We can't help but hope throughout the book that Mike will be able to do that and that we could find a way to help more people do that. 

Mini-Review: Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 Yeah, I could have written full reviews for the books I've reviewed this week and gotten another week of reviews; but, if I put this off longer, I'll forget the books, let alone what I want to say about them. So here's another mini-review of a book I've read, and really enjoyed, recently. 

Midnight Library by Matt Haig

304 pages

Published September 2020 by Penguin Publishing Group

Source: my public library

Publisher's Summary: 

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? 

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

My Thoughts: 

Recommended by a friend at work (thanks, Ann!), this is a book that really makes you think about the what ifs of your life, and there are so very many more what ifs than you ever considered. If you had a chance to see every single possible version of the life you might have led, which would you choose? Nora discovers that getting what you thought you wanted out of life isn't necessarily what you would have chosen had you known how it would have ended. 

I wasn't a fan of the ending of this one. I wish it had ended about six pages earlier, left the reader wondering. But there were some really great things in this book. 

"Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents, who both had their own insecurities had encouraged that idea. 

She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself complete. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lost or longing she had surpassed. 

She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale. 

She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best. 

And in doing so, she imagined what was like to be free." 

In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn

In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn

331 pages

Published March 2020 by Lake Union Publishing

Publisher's Summary: 

Life is over in an instant for sixteen-year-old Finn Miller when a devastating car accident tumbles her and ten others over the side of a mountain. Suspended between worlds, she watches helplessly as those she loves struggle to survive.

Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret. Unable to let go, Finn keeps vigil as they struggle to reclaim their shattered lives. Jack, her father, who seeks vengeance against the one person he can blame other than himself; her best friend, Mo, who bravely searches for the truth as the story of their survival is rewritten; her sister Chloe, who knows Finn lingers and yearns to join her; and her mother, Ann, who saved them all but is haunted by her decisions. Finn needs to move on, but how can she with her family still in pieces?

My Thoughts: 

My bookworm coworker recommended this one to me after she read it with her bookclub. She didn't tell me much about it but her enthusiasm convinced me to pick it up without even reading the summary. Which is why I thought seriously about not giving you the summary to this one. I did not see what happened on page forty coming at all! 

The Millers are a family teetering on the brink - Jack and Ann are barely holding it together; Ann doesn't know how to handle their teenaged son, Oz; Jack has given up his job to care for Oz; Ann and Chloe are barely on speaking terms; and poor Finn feels a little invisible. Still, Jack thinks a family ski trip is just the thing to bring the family together. Along for the ride is Finn's best friend, Mo; Ann's bestfriend "Aunt" Karen and her husband "Uncle" Bob and daughter Natalie; and Chloe's boyfriend, Vance. The family has no sooner arrived in their striped down camper at their cabin in the mountains when they turn around to leave for dinner. Along the way, they pick up a young man, Kyle, whose car has broken down. He has hardly joined the group when Jack has to swerve to avoid hitting a deer in the road, sliding into a guardrail that gives way. 

How to give readers the full picture of what happens to each of the people in that camper for the next couple of days? One of them dies, allowing them to become an omniscient narrator. This allows us to follow Chloe when she follows Vance, despite her mother's protestations, who heads out to find help. It allows us to follow Ann and Kyle when they also head off for help. And it allows us to stay in the camper with the remaining family and friends. It allows us to see the choices that are made. And it allows us to make judgements that Redfearn will make us question later. 

Because although the first 100 or so pages of this book seem to be a survival tale, at its heart, this book is a morality tale. Our omniscient narrator forces us to question our opinions, making us consider if one person's choices were better or worse than another's. You think you know, as you're reading the book, what you would do given the same situation, what the morally "right" thing to do would be. But Redfearn will make you rethink that answer. Would you really do the "right" thing if it meant your own family member was more at risk? 

And what about the aftermath? How would you heal from what happened? How do you heal yourself mentally and grieve? How much of you can be spared to help everyone else heal? There is a lot to be unpacked here. My coworker's book club read this one and she said they had a great discussion, including about 20 minutes discussing the author's afterword where Redfearn discusses the personal experience that inspired the book. Does the book have flaws? Yes - there are unanswered questions that don't necessarily feel like they were meant to be unanswered, the narrator often appears wise beyond their years, and some things happen that seem entirely improbable. But it kept me racing through it, hoping for the healing and hope that Redfearn delivers on in the end.