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.

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen
1994, Dell Publishing
ISBN: 0-440-22103-X

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen. This is a good book. You should read this book. If that’s all you read of this review I got the important stuff said.

This is the story of a woman, her family and the time she spent taking care of her dying mother. Anna Quindlen reaches into a story to pull the really good stuff out for you to see. What’s even more astonishing to me is that she pulled the stuff out of my own heart for me to see. I had no idea that stuff was in there. I cried for my own mother gone these 14 years now. And, even though I’m a psychic channel, even though I talk to my own mother often even though she is dead, I found unresolved stuff to think about, to hurt about, to cry about, to heal about.

Yikes, but this is a good book. This wasn’t time to spend curled up with a really good page turner. This wasn’t time to pass as you wait for something else to happen. This book reached out and grabbed me, wouldn’t let me go, wouldn’t allow me to do anything else until I had finished it.

I don’t know that I understand everything there was. I understood enough; enough for me. I’m glad I read it. I will read others written by Anna Quindlen. In fact, I don’t even have to know anything about the books she writes for me to pick one up anymore. If it’s got her name on it, it will be a good book to read. Thanks, Anna. I needed that.

"Blessings" by Anna Quindlen

"Blessings" by Anna Quindlen
2002 Random House
ISBN: 0-375-50223-8

You expect a book to have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's a formula. I personally, also expect a happy ending. Anna Quindlen gave me so much more than that with her novel, "Blessings". I was enthralled. Typical and expected are not what happened here and, yet, it was so plausible. It really could have happened just the way she said.

This is the first time I've read anything by Anna Quindlen and I feel thankful to know she's written other books. I will certainly be reading them.

A painter of words, Anna Quindlen set "Blessings" to swirl about me, to remind me of my own family's secrets nobody ever wanted to talk about and to cry at the end; always for me the cherrie atop my own personal sundae.