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Mar 05, 2008

Liz B rated it:

The rating is a personal one. I suppose the book is a fine book, and at least moderately well-written. It's not really the book's fault that I hated the premise (everything that happens after the protagonist's teenage daughter accidentally runs over and kills another teenager), disliked the protagonist (whiny), and was pretty much uninterested in the back story. In fact, the main real critique I have of this novel--that is, a critique not based on personal taste and bias--is that it doesn't hav More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2007

Christina rated it:

I am tired of books that say one thing and deliver another. This was supposed to be the story of a mother dealing with an accident her daughter had in which she killed another teenager. Instead it was a flashback rich tale of Mom's woes thorugh life and the accident took a backseat, so much so that the truth about what happened that day was NEVER given. Waste of time!

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2007

Arbkdbarb rated it:

I could not put this book down and finished it the same day I started it. It seems that opinions of this book are all over the place, but I for one found it to be quite intriging and well-written.

Perhaps the description on the cover is a bit misleading since the story is actually about the mother, who has a very strained relationship with her teen daughter which is put to the test by the tragedy. She relives her sad and unfortunate childhood and relationship with her own mother and More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2007

Christy rated it:

I loved Moriarty's debut novel, The Center of Everything, and was excited when I found out that she had this new book out: The Rest of Her Life. The Rest of Her Life starts with a fatal accident - a high school girl accidentally kills another teenage girl with her car. The book follows the aftermath of this accident from the perspective of the young driver's mother, Leigh.

Leigh is certainly a flawed person, but I found her quite relatable. Moriarty shows how Leigh came to be the k More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2008

Kate rated it:

This was a great book, very hard to put down. I read it in 2 days flat.

The story centers around the Churchill family, when daughter Kara, a smart, pretty high school senior, hits and kills a classmate while driving with distractions. The book follows the Churchills in the months that follow.

The dust jacket describes the story as being about the family dealing with the public outcry and community outrage stemming from the act, as well as the town's dealing with the situa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 28, 2011

Diane rated it:

Kara is a teenage girl, ready to graduate from high school and move on with her life. Unfortunately, life has other plans for her. In an instant, Kara makes a devastating mistake while driving and her entire future is at risk. The incident also affects her entire family.

Kara's mom, Leigh, is the central character in this story. The story is told through her eyes. We learn about her past; how she and her sister, Pam, grew up with a cold mother. Her mom walked out on them while Leigh wa More...

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May 08, 2010

Dorothy rated it:

The Rest of her Life is a convoluted tale dealing with a strained relationship between a high school senior and her mother, Leigh Churchill. The plot thickens right from the get go when Kara carelessly backs out of the parking lot at Ray's Liquor Store in her father's Suburban and kills a ninth grader in her school named Bethany Cleese.
Leigh had had Bethany for a student in eighth grade. That was a year ago. The memory of having had her in her class loomed prominently in her mind as More...

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Sep 10, 2009

Lisa rated it:

Leigh Churchill has a nice life in a small Kansas town: A sweet husband, two good kids, a teaching job she loves. There’s the usual teenage trouble with her daughter, Kara, but nothing serious. It all changes one day - on the first page of the book - when a distracted Kara runs a stop sign and ends up killing a girl.
In “The Rest of Her Life,” Moriarty follows the family in the turmoil after the accident. She deftly captures the initial horror and the sadness, but also explores the wash of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2011

Donna rated it:

THE REST OF HER LIFE, Laura Moriarty
Family story—teenage daughter has a life-changing accident, which changes the relationships within her home. Recognition of people’s feelings and how each of us comes to terms with life in our own way unfolds. (Was a bargain book at Borders that looked like it might have some promise ;-) – Was ok, but no Jodi Piccoult <wink>) )

SPOILERS!!!

p. 17 “They’d started out so well together, she and her little girl; but now, sitting More...

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Jul 31, 2010

Emily rated it:

I really loved this book. I didn't find it at all 'jodi piccolt'-ish. Though I can see why people have linked the two. It didn't feel overtly sappy as JP books can. This was a really interesting point of view, and I found it refreshingly different. The jacket is a bit misleading though as it does state that it is a book about a young woman and the aftermath of her accidentally killing a teenager. The story is much better than that. The accident is a catalist for a change in the mother/dau More...

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May 23, 2009

Bonnie rated it:

The Rest of Her Life takes the reader into the life of a family whose lives are turned upside down in an instant. The book opens with Kara, a teenager who is about to graduate from high school and while driving makes a terrible mistake that changes the course of her life and those around her. This mistake also affects another teenager, Bethany and her family. I don't want to share all of the details of the story as it would give too much away.

The story is actually told through the e More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 22, 2011

Pam rated it:

It was realistic in many ways about a mother and a teenage daughter. The strain usually happens sometime during their relationship. The mother had her own problems growing up which may have played a part in the way she said things to the daughter and the way she felt about what people said to her. In some ways, she seemed a little strange in that she seemed to worry more about the injured family than she did about her own daughter. I thought she should have been giving more sympathy to her da More...

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Jul 14, 2009

Kathy rated it:

I actually liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. It was not a plot driven page-turner or a thesis from the author on how well she could write literature, but more of thoughtful book about changing relationships and how the harder we may try to not be something or someone, the more we may end up the same.

Kara is a high school senior who accidentally kills a schoolmate while driving distractedly. Her mother, who has tried so hard to be a different and more involved paren More...

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Laura Moriarty's first novel, The Center of Everything (***1/2 Sept/Oct 2003), explored a difficult mother-daughter relationship through the eyes of a sympathetic child narrator. In The Rest of Her Life Moriarty takes a different tack: although the mother-child relationship still takes center stage, it is the less-than-perfect mother who narrates the story. Most critics praised Moriarty for her sensitive and realistic portrayal of a parent struggling with her child's transgression; however, a fe

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Nov 07, 2009

Jill rated it:

I started and stopped this book several times. Once I got past the first 100 pages I was compelled to finish it and did so in a few days. The subject matter is disturbing; a mother's journey through the tragedy of her 18 year old daughter running over and killing a pedestrian. I disliked the story line, especially since I have a 17 year old daughter, but had to know how you would survive this, if you could survive it. It hit close to home as I have a friend whose 19 year daughter was driving More...

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Jul 24, 2009

Debbie (Readerbuzz) rated it:

The Center of Everything was a book I raved about, a book I pushed on to unsuspecting people, a book I adored.

The Rest of Her Life is much more formulaic, more like a Jodi Picoult novel, with a sad problem revolving around human dynamics. Kara, a young girl about to graduate from high school, accidentally hits and kills a pedestrian. The book centers on Kara and her family and friends and their attempts to come to terms with what happened.

The sc More...

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Mar 15, 2009

Clif rated it:

The angst of the mother-daughter relationship is thoroughly examined in this novel through the telling the story of a family in a time of crisis. The reader is informed at the very beginning of the story that the daughter was the driver of a vehicle that struck and killed another young girl. The mother wants to be supportive to her teenage daughter to help her through the crisis. But her daughter doesn't want to talk to her. It seems to the mother that everything she says is taken in the wr More...

3 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Kristina rated it:

I can certainly understand why so many readers were disappointed in the ending of this book. The storylines never really seem to wrap up as one might hope they would and instead leave more to the imagination/ guessing how things turned out.

Overall, I found the story to be interesting, but not quite what I had expected. The beginning starts out with a terrible car accident in which Leigh's daughter Kara accidentally kills another student in a crosswalk. As it turns out though, th More...

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May 06, 2009

Cindy rated it:

This book was moderately interesting, though I wish we could have learned more about Kara and what she was thinking and feeling after accidentally hitting another teen with her car and killing her. I believe other authors would have delved into this in great detail, instead of focusing on her Kara's mother, Leigh.

I will say that I enjoyed the confrontation scenes between the Churchill family and the mother of the victim, Diane. Near the end of the story, we learned that Kara wrot More...

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Dec 14, 2011

Donnamp rated it:

This book centers on Lehigh Churchill, the mother of a teen-age girl who accidentally kills a classmate in an auto accident. The story mostly centers on Lehigh's dysfunctional childhood and her strained relationship with her daughter. The book never fully explores how Lehigh's relationship with her daughter became so distant, but I suppose that is also an element of realism to the story since oftentimes in relationships there is not one defining moment or event but a series of moments and even More...

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Dec 26, 2010

Rhonda Rae rated it:

Was going to give this a three because of the ending but after thinking about it the novel deserves a four because it is so well written and insightful. I was involved from the beginning and found myself agreeing with the characters on so many details. My heart was wrenched with what happened as I've been to places very similar. A very beautiful story, one that you'll remember for a long time. As mother's we try our very best to protect the children and give them what we never had...but we r More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2008

Ti rated it:

The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty is about Kara, who in a moment of carelessness causes an accident that changes her life and the lives of those around her, forever.

I can't imagine what it would feel like to kill someone, even if by accident. The grief, to me, would be so overwhelming and to be the parent of the person that caused such pain, would be very difficult to deal with as well. Moriarty does an excellent job of portraying what such a situation would feel like. She looks More...

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Jul 14, 2011

Shantelle rated it:

I came across this book after my dear friend had been killed after a car accident where a teenage boy ran a red light after he had been drinking. At any rate, I decided to read this book thinking that it would help me, but it didn't. The book had a great plot, but it was under-developed. The main character whined so much so that the reader forgot about her daughter and the victim of her daughter's accident. This book really should have been a good read, but it wasn't. At times I found myself ski More...

1 comment like

Jun 15, 2010

Rene rated it:

This is an eye-opening, thought provoking book that tests your morals and outlooks on life. It's one of those situations that you hope never happens to you or those you love; negligent homocide. Not only is that a challenge for any adult but probably profoundly more difficult for an 18 year old girl fresh out of High School starting the summer before she goes off to college. This book also delves deep into mother/daughter relationships with the short and long term affects of their actions/ina More...

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Aug 15, 2009

Simona rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Mar 19, 2009

Dawn rated it:

So far, this is an interesting topic and good writing style. It is a subject that we all hope never to face and I am curious to see how it is handled. The Mom, Leigh, has so many issues that are really brought into sharp focus with the events that occur in the beginning of the story. I find myself nodding silent assent as she struggles inwardly with the desire to be a "good" Mom and also feel needed and loved and seen for who she really is. Her feelings of trying to be understood and t More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 04, 2009

Katie rated it:

I read this book because I loved Laura Moriarty's first book, The Center of Everything. However, I wasn't as impressed with this one as I was the first one. Part of that might have been the fact that this book is about an adult and I am a teenager. I felt like this book was kind of boring. I can't even really remember what happened. The interesting parts of the book were the parts where we learned about the main character's screwed up past. If you've read The Center of Everything and like it, I More...

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Jan 14, 2010

Helen rated it:

Kansas author Moriarty follows up The Center of Everything with a second thoughtful book, The Rest of Her Life. When high school senior Kara accidentally hits and kills a fellow high school student in her car she changes the course of not only her own life, but of family, friends and strangers alike.

Moriarty examines the repercussions of the accident from many different perspectives without resorting to fabricated melodrama. Fans of Jodi Picoult and Chris Bohjalian will appreciate t More...

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Feb 02, 2011

Marjorie rated it:

NOt as good as "The Center of Everything". This is a story of a women whose life is shattered when her teen age daughter accidently hits another girl with her car and kills her.
The Characters are sterotyped, the mother (from a troubled background, of course) struggles to connect with ther daughter. The daughter, an A student and a good athlete (of course!) struggles with the accident, mainly by not talking to her mother. There is a too good to be true husband, who is very underst More...

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Dec 12, 2010

Vanessa Lynn rated it:

Bought this book at the bargain bin at Borders. It was the best $3.99 ever spent! The book was endorsed by Jodi Picoult so once I read that on the back cover, I was sold! I wish I could give this book a 3.5 stars. It is more than "liked" but a little less than "really liked." I liked the story as a whole, even though the summary is a little misleading. It is somewhat Jodi Picoult-ish in the fact that it challenges you to put yourself and your family in an impossible and More...

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