Reviews for Every last one : a novel
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Mary Beth Latham seems to have an idyllic life in a Vermont town as the wife of a respected doctor and the mother of three teenagers. But her son Max has been withdrawn and depressed, unlike his outgoing and popular twin, Alex, and her moody and sensitive daughter, Ruby, wants to break up with her emotionally needy boyfriend, who is practically a member of the family. Quindlen gives her readers an ominous sense of impending tragedy, but it still arrives with a shock. The book is divided into before and after, and it is compulsive reading. You might find yourself racing through the story, which could be drawn from today's headlines or TV news, and only later reflecting on how skillful the author is in her portrayal of family life in all its little details and in her flawless pacing. Verdict This gripping novel will undoubtedly be the choice of many book groups, too. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/10.]-Leslie Patterson, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Unforeseen catastrophe and how we cope with it is fiction's raison d'etre, yet few novelists can turn the innocent before and the shattered after into fiction as accessible, specific, authentic, graceful, touching, and radiant as Quindlen's. In her sixth magnetizing novel, we know early on that something horrible is going to happen in the Latham household, which we experience through the keen senses and swirling thoughts of Mary Beth. Contentedly married to an ophthalmologist (an ironic profession, given how many clues to the impending tragedy she and her husband fail to see), she runs a landscape design business and attends ardently to her children: beautiful and creative teen Ruby, and slightly younger twin sons, who are so unalike they barely seem related. Kiernan, Ruby's boyfriend, is also an integral part of the hectic, happy household. Mary Beth's narrative voice is not only reliable but also irresistible, and after she survives the unthinkable, her struggle to reconstruct her life evolves into a penetrating inquiry into the bewilderment of grief. But for all of Quindlen's bold and invaluable insights into anguish and recovery, what stands out most are her charming and insightful portrayals of mercurial, marvelous teenagers, her fluency in the complexity of family dynamics, and her deep understanding of mother love.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
