A mother. A daughter. A shattering choice.
From Anna Quindlen, bestselling author of Black and Blue, comes a no... read full description
From Anna Quindlen, bestselling author of Black and Blue, comes a no... read full description
reviews
Sep 10, 2007
Margie
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There are some authors I'm interested in reading, but instead of reading a variety of their books, I end up rereading the same book repeatedly. One True Thing is one of those books for me. I keep thinking I'm going to read Black and Blue or Object Lessons, but read this instead. Maybe I should add a bookshelf called "books I'm tired of re-reading".
To me, the best parts of the book are her descriptions. She paints very vivid word pictures. Once or twice during my most r More...
To me, the best parts of the book are her descriptions. She paints very vivid word pictures. Once or twice during my most r More...
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Jan 25, 2008
Amanda
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This is the book that changed everything for me ... I used to HATE reading! I was a slow reader and my mind would wander while I read. During one of my last semesters of college, I took an elective course called Death and Dying. Instead of a final exam, we were required to read this book and then write a paper about it. I did not enjoy reading, so I was pleasantly surprised when I couldn't put the book down! This was almost 10 years ago, so I'm not sure if the book was really that remarkable
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Feb 22, 2008
Bonnie
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I really like Anna Quindlen. I think she writes very real, ordinary books that show a hidden, beautiful side of human nature. An especially poignant story about mother-daughter relationships.
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Dec 18, 2008
bookczuk
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I'm often distrustful when critics call a novel remarkable, but in this case they are right. Funny thing was that when this was made into a movie, and I heard Meryl Streep was in it, I thought she was all wrong for the part-- because I envisioned her as the daughter (ie ,i>my</i> age) not as the mother, who should have been my mom's age. I laughed when I learned she played the mom, because of course, that was good casting. :)
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Feb 21, 2008
Vicki
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This is one of those books that haunts you long after you read it. It is about the relationships between an adult daughter, her dying mother and the father she adores. The daughter puts her career on hold to return home, as her father demands, to care for her mother. I read it a year or so after caring for my own dying mother, and several passages were so perfectly descriptive of the emotionally charged experience that I was moved to tears. Quindlen writes as though from experience, though h
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Feb 08, 2008
Jan
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I must have read this book three times since its publication and each time I read it, I have even more of an appreciation for the depth of Quindlen's characters; her descriptive writing and paragraphs that you can ponder for hours. The dynamics of a family are so intricate and impossible to define, especially as a child. For the very best description of this book, read the review by Tim Appelo; he says it all and I couldn't agree more. Normally, I hate when my favorite book becomes a movie bu
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Mar 17, 2008
Jennine
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I read this book shortly after my own Mom died, so it was especially painful. I loved the book and cook club and how the daughter finally was able to establish an adult relationship with a woman she had totally misjudged. The book explores being pulled painfully out of our childhood misconceptions about who our family members are. The daughter gained a mother just to lose her, and lost a father after being forced to see him exposed to the harsh light of reality rather than through childish ad
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Dec 31, 2008
Antof9
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Lame book review from BookCrossing, part the first:
Wow, I cried a lot in this book!
When a book has been made into a movie, I never prefer having the picture on the cover. Nevertheless, I still read this book :) The problem was, though, that I kept picturing the actors on the cover as the characters in the book, which bugged me. However, if you had to picture actors as the characters you were reading, the mom, dad and Ellen were not a problem as portrayed (there's only one son p More...
Wow, I cried a lot in this book!
When a book has been made into a movie, I never prefer having the picture on the cover. Nevertheless, I still read this book :) The problem was, though, that I kept picturing the actors on the cover as the characters in the book, which bugged me. However, if you had to picture actors as the characters you were reading, the mom, dad and Ellen were not a problem as portrayed (there's only one son p More...
Nov 02, 2010
Michael
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My mother passed away (not from cancer), but from heart failure due to a condition called Mitral Regurgitation. All she really needed was a valve replacement but it was too late. My mom's death was very sudden & unexpected on January 24, 2000. In any case, my mother told me she loved this book. I had to read it...especially after she passed away. The story is a sad one about a mother who is dying of cancer with a bit of a twist about 'who killed her'! It taught me that time is precious and to sp
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May 10, 2010
Cheree
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Besides the difficult story line of a daughter taking care of her mother through final months of cancer, I was really moved by the relationship that was forged between mother and daughter during this time period.
I think Quindlen did a beautiful job of describing the struggle that many women endure (smart vs. sweet) and how we have trouble understanding one another. Women don't have to be either or. Sometimes, you can be strong enough to be both.
We can a More...
Mar 04, 2010
Amy
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I almost didn't read this, because I thought it was about a wife who's husband has sexual relations and who's daughter came to help with their dying wife/mother.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the complexity of their relationships. Ellen grew up thinking of her mother as someone who made their home like Martha Stewart-- perfect. She loved took care of her kids, but Ellen was much closer with her father.
As Ellen took care of her mother as she went thru her chemo and w More...
I was pleasantly surprised to see the complexity of their relationships. Ellen grew up thinking of her mother as someone who made their home like Martha Stewart-- perfect. She loved took care of her kids, but Ellen was much closer with her father.
As Ellen took care of her mother as she went thru her chemo and w More...
Nov 03, 2011
Terri
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I loved this book. It's a rare thing when a book is so engrossing that I can shut out the world around me entirely without any effort. I was lost in the characters from the first chapter. What a writer! I've never read Anna Quindlen before and I'm dying to read some of her other books now. She has a way of making you feel as if you are living in their house with them, absorbing their raw pain, their beauty and despair. I started reading this book to help me slow down on Reading 'Cutting fo
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Jan 27, 2011
Richard
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A novel told in the first person about a young woman who is asked by her strange (and estranged) father to come home and take care of her mother who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer of some internal organs. She didn’t want to do it because she had not got along well with her mother and father. She does reluctantly come home and through the process of taking care of her mother, she learns more about her mother and her father and about herself. The mother dies toward the end with w
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Jul 21, 2010
Suzanne
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Summary of the plot: A call came from her father that changed everything. He demanded that she quit her job, come home, and take care of her mother who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. While growing up she hardly even knew her mother, preferring instead the company of her father, an English professor.. She was more than a little insulted by the demand, but ended up being her mother's closest companion for the elder Gulden's last six months of life.
The autopsy revealed an ove More...
The autopsy revealed an ove More...
Jul 31, 2011
Gina
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I decided to read this book very quickly as I tend to take on the mood of the books I read and I didn't want this story to color my days for very long. I love Quindlen's prose and further enjoy explorations of family dynamics--especially mother-daughter and daughter-father relationships--so it was a must read on my list.
In spite of my attempt to gloss through it, this book managed to sink deeply. It is a gorgeously crafted--if a bit didactic--story. Quindlen is a wordsmith of the first order More...
In spite of my attempt to gloss through it, this book managed to sink deeply. It is a gorgeously crafted--if a bit didactic--story. Quindlen is a wordsmith of the first order More...
Dec 19, 2008
Erin
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I love Anna Quindlen. I love the way she uses her words, I love her essays and observations, and I'd love to take her to lunch and pick her brain about writing and just bask in her greatness. That said, because I love Quindlen's writing so much, I'm inclined to read anything she puts out -- no matter the topic. "One True Thing" is a book that I'm glad that I read, but it was incredibly hard to get through. It's the story of a young journalist called home to care for her mother as she s
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Dec 02, 2008
Melissa
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An amazing, heart wrenching story. This book literally brought me to tears, several times. The novel is about a twenty something girl, Ellen, who is asked by her father to come home and help take care of her dying mother. In doing so she learns a lot about life, true love and the family ties that bind us even if sometimes they are hard to see. At first the protagonist is resentful focusing on all the differences between her life as a metropolitan writer and her homemaker mother. The relationship
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Aug 18, 2010
Eduardo
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An accident of birth prevents me from fully understanding this book. I imagine that had I been born female, my entire childhood and life would have contained a different undercurrent: the expectation of being a caretaker. Males don't get that. I can see, I can sense, I can empathize... but not feel. Not like this. This upbringing is, I dare say, a true dividing wall between the sexes... yet Quindlen does such a damn good job of writing that it's like the wall is but mesh. One True Thing mo
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Mar 08, 2011
Leslie
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This was my first Quindlen novel (I had read "Object Lessons"; excerpts from her newspaper column, which was why I fell so in love with her). She has been my favorite author since. Anyway, this was also her first novel, I believe, and she doesn't like to admit it, but it pretty much mirrors her personal life. The book is about the double standards placed on women and how because we are women, anytime the family unit falls, whether it be of illness or financial or whatever, of cours
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Dec 20, 2008
Sally Anne
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I read this book a while back and just watched the movie, not realizing of course it was a book I had read. I love Quindlen's writing. What is especially touching is how slowly the relationship develops. It is not a given of all sweetness and light. In the book, it is first person so it is even more understandable, the grown child's narcissisms and dislike of her mother's chosen life. There is a great line in the book, I believe, when the daughter is complaining to the father about all she
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Jul 09, 2011
Claudia
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Well,you cannot go wrong with an Anna Quindlan book,speaking as a woman.I read a wide variety of books,so I don't get sick of the same type of story.I have read several of her (anna's)books and this is my favorite.I think every mother or daughter can see themselves in (parts?)this book. The father is overbearing,and the daughter has her life put on hold,to come home and be her mother's caregiver.Why? because,thru her father's eyes,well...she is the daughter. The relationships are all intricate,a
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Sep 13, 2009
Lisa
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Each summer I read one more of Anna Quindlen's books -- I loved her column years ago and I also love her fiction. I challenge myself to find one of her novels I haven't yet read on one of those bargain book tables on the sidewalk -- paid $2 for this one. The plot line wasn't my favorite -- a daughter puts her life on hold to nurse her mother, diagnosed with cancer, to her death. But the writing is rich and the plot line honest. I wanted to talk some sense into the protagonist, but I think that w
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Oct 04, 2010
Ellen
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Made into a movie a few years ago - a daughter quits her NYC job to take care of her mother dying of cancer. Professor dad mostly not there. A really good deep inquiry into the daughter's relationship with both her mother and her father and how her ideas about both of them change. How much do we really know about the people we love? We only ever really know just parts of them. And we don't really fully understand our parents' relationship. Maybe even they do not. Not to mention how challengi
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May 06, 2010
Nicole
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This isn't my favorite Quindlen novel, but it is still good. The interactions between the mother and daughter were very real and I liked that part of the book. However, there was too little about the father. Yes, it was true to his character that he was distant and aloof, hiding behind his intellect. But for the reader to believe that the daughter built her life around emulating him to gain his approval, the reader needs to know why. What was so great about him? I also thought that the las
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Sep 02, 2011
Geri
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I have to say that while I have not personally experienced the terminal illness of a parent, this book was painful to read. While I'm not one to bury my head in the sand, I also don't choose to seek out misery. It didn't help matters that I really did not like the main character, her father, or her boyfriend. I'm not sure why I didn't find her appealing but she did garner a modicum of respect from me for her sacrifice near the end. I felt the legal angle was kind of skimmed over rushed. All i
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Aug 24, 2010
pacjennifer
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I saw this as a movie first when I was in Physician Assistant school. Meryl Streep plays the mother, and from a medical standpoint I could identify in so many ways.
The book, as so often does, gives a great look inside the hearts of minds of mother's and daughters, expectations and biases that we sometimes outgrow as we get older and see life differently.
I was also a home health nurse and took care of patients at home for years, so it struck me as very true on that level too.
I More...
The book, as so often does, gives a great look inside the hearts of minds of mother's and daughters, expectations and biases that we sometimes outgrow as we get older and see life differently.
I was also a home health nurse and took care of patients at home for years, so it struck me as very true on that level too.
I More...
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Sep 25, 2010
Jalena
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Beautifully crafted, this novel rings more true than anything else I've read about the experience of caring for a dying mother. It captures the transformational growth and insight, the richness of connecting with those who step up, and the shock of seeing those who don't for who they really are. Although it is about the process of accepting death, it's more about the complex relationships between parent and child, and what it means to grow up and see our parents as multi-dimensional beings.
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Mar 16, 2011
Larry
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My first experience of Quindlen was as a Newsweek columnist. Then I found her book Black & Blue and now One True Thing. I thought the book ended as a good mystery that is finally solved. But Quindlen writes at the end "all our lives have some mystery at the core, and many of them go unsolved." I am thinking about the death of parents as the son of two 90 year olds. Since I live at a distance from my parents, our in person communication is sporadic and has limitations. But, when we are
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Jun 20, 2010
Kate
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One True Thing One True Thing by Anna Quindlen
From amazon.com:
""You" says Ellen Gulden's father, as he throws her stuff out on the porch after she suggests he "hire a nurse" to take care of her dying mother, "have a Harvard education, but you have no heart."
And so starts her journey back into her family (she quits her job in the big city), back to the mother she never really identified with. So starts her learnin More...
From amazon.com:
""You" says Ellen Gulden's father, as he throws her stuff out on the porch after she suggests he "hire a nurse" to take care of her dying mother, "have a Harvard education, but you have no heart."
And so starts her journey back into her family (she quits her job in the big city), back to the mother she never really identified with. So starts her learnin More...
May 06, 2010
Rhonda Rae
rated it:
You will enjoy this novel...pick it up and read it slow...the process of thoughts and feelings will give you insight you never know you needed...it's amazing! Such family dynamics; full of love, anger, hate, forgiveness, misunderstanding, tragedy, and ultimately hope.
I was thinking this would maybe be a three star...then as I got going it seemed like a four star...but after reading through, experiencing the emotions, thinking about family and life and the pictures we paint outselves More...
I was thinking this would maybe be a three star...then as I got going it seemed like a four star...but after reading through, experiencing the emotions, thinking about family and life and the pictures we paint outselves More...
