In the three years since their divorce Karina and Richard have had very little to do with each other. Karina remained in their suburban Boston home with their daughter, Grace and Richard moved into a high-end brownstone in the city. Richard continued touring the country as a world-class concert pianist and Karina made ends meet by giving piano lessons out of her living room. Karina is at a neighborhood function when she hears that Richard has canceled the remainder of his tour due to an illness, ALS. She goes to visit Richard to see for herself and finds the same insulting, demeaning man that she divorced. Another year has gone by before she sees him again. The disease has ravaged his body, rendering his arms completely useless. Before she even knows what she is doing she offers Richard the opportunity to come home and let her care for him for whatever time remains. Will this time be what it takes for the two of them to heal the wounds of the past?
ALS is a horrific disease that has been in the news a lot this last week with the passing of the great Stephen Hawking. Lisa Genova has made a career from writing the fictional tales of people battling the most horrific diseases. Every Note Played is another story of another horrific disease. Neither Karina nor Richard were perfect people, but Richard was very hard to like. Even with his illness, he was not a very nice man. Karina, you could at least understand why she found it so easy to blame Richard for every bad thing in her life. The author takes turns telling the story from Richard's view and then Karina's view. However, the more the disease progressed the less we saw of Karina's side of things. And that is what made Every Note Played so difficult to read. Every muscle that stopped working, every bodily function that started to fail him, every labored breath made it tough to read. The realities of what a person goes through when they battle ALS is tough to read, but it is also to turn away. There is no happy ending in a story about ALS. But, it did end with both Richard and Karina getting the freedom they both desperately wanted.
Bottom Line - When a disease ravages a person it wreaks havoc on the whole family. Every Note Played is a novel that examines what such a disease does to an already fractured family. Trust me when I say that this book is going to require a full box of tissues.
Details:
- Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
- On Facebook
- Pages: 320
- Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
- Publication Date: 3/20/2018
- Buy it Here!
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