Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

It has been awhile since I did a review. It’s not that I stopped reading because I have not. It’s because my reading changed for a time. Instead of devouring them and then taking the few moments it would take to write a review I began to read books like a chain smoker. No pausing from one to the other.


People have things happen in their lives that jolt them, that somehow make them jump their tracks. That happened to us. Our long time neighbor of 20 years Phil passed away in January. Here it is six months later and I’m still off kilter. I realize that he is okay. I’m a psychic and a channel in my alter life and so am able to speak to him any time I want. So, I realize he has another life and is content and happy, but still I grieved. That grief took me away from much of what I was doing at the time. I have several blogs and several websites and lots of things to do that interest me not to mention a forty hour a week job.

I slipped into a rut that consisted of work and reading. Slowly I am taking small steps to move on. Now, I will try one other thing, a review. Why? Because I read a book that mesmerized me for a time.

In, “Every Last One” Anna Quindlen fleshes out her characters so well that you can almost finish their sentences for them you get to know them that well. Personally I think that is a very difficult thing probably because I have yet to do it myself with the passing attempts I make at writing. But, for me reading is a joy and I learn from each and every book I read (or re-read). I think I might have glimpsed some of her writer’s magic in this book.

From a writer’s standpoint I am in awe. From a reader’s standpoint I couldn’t put it down and from a person who is grieving I could feel hope.

This story shows what happens to a person who is happy with her life. Granted things might be a little different or better, but whose life is like that anyway? Perfect. No, this is about a real person’s life. The mother, the wife, the friend and how she is to each of those people who spin out from her center. But, there at the center of her universe it is safe. Each day flows one into the next. People change and there are regrets. But, really, it is just one day after another, one season after another and one year after another.

Until something so horrifying happens that cannot ever have been foretold. And, the last part of the story is how Mary Beth Latham learns that there can be life after a devastating moment.

I’m recommending it to any who would like to read it.