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Inside the O'Briens
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Inside the O'Briens / Lisa Genova. 4.5 stars
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I really liked this one, too.
Love Lisa Genova!
This is only the 2nd one I've read by her, but I think I'll be reading them all. :-)
4.5 stars
Joe is a cop in Boston. He and his wife Rosie have 4 adult children when Joe is diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease while in his early 40s. It’s a progressive disease with no cure that will lead to his death. In the meantime he can expect involuntary movements, slurring of his speech, rage, OCD, and a host of other symptoms. Huntington’s is inherited and each of Joe’s kids has a 50/50 chance of inheriting the gene. There is a test, if they’d like to know. Joe’s oldest son is married and they’ve been trying to have a baby. The youngest, Katie, is just getting into a serious relationship, and is having trouble trying to figure out how to deal with this.
Wow! This was so good! In addition to learning about Huntington’s Disease (which is quite rare), Genova did an amazing job, I thought, of bringing the O’Brien family to life. I loved the Sunday dinners with the family and all their interactions. The book followed Joe and Katie, and how they each dealt with Huntington’s, so we got to see how Joe was dealing with living with it, and how Katie was trying to deal with her father having it, and how it would potentially affect her and her new relationship, and her struggle to decide if she wanted to know if she carried the gene or not. This will make my favourites this year.