Suicide Club by Rachel Heng

Modern medicine is making advances all the time, certainly not quickly enough for some, but at a much faster rate than in previous generations. What will that mean in the next few hundred years? How close can we get to curing everything? Could immortality be possible and if so, would we want it to be?

These are the questions posed in Rachel Heng's Suicide Club which introduces us to Lea and Anja, two "lifers" in the midst of their own individual struggles with the system and regulations of mortality. In a world in which the birthrate has dropped significantly, life extensions have become available in order to maintain human existence. At birth a child is tested and the results indicate how long they are likely to live. If the child is a "lifer", someone expected to live far beyond the average lifespan, they are given treatments to maintain and supplement their health. As the book begins, Lea is celebrating her 100th birthday though it looks quite different to any 100th birthday celebration I have ever seen. Lea is in the prime of her life (three hundred was now the number to beat) and her career. She is of the utmost health and is expecting any day to be invited to join the Third Wave, a set of life extensions that could lead to absolute immortality.

Anja is in quite a different position. She has all the advantages of being a "lifer", and in this society they are many, but her mother does not. Having obtained certain procedures and medical devices on the black market, Anja's mother's health has begun to fail beyond help, legal or otherwise. Unfortunately, the mechanical heart and other treatments she has prevent her from actually dying and she is stuck in a horrific limbo between alive and dead. Anja wants to help her, but how to do so when the choice to live or die isn't in the hands of the individual? And so we are introduced to Suicide Club, a group of activists intent on changing the mind of society about what it now means to be either pro-life or pro-choice.

The concept of this book was fascinating and so much of it was so good, but at times the plot seemed to lose direction a bit. The science fiction elements, however, were on point. The details from the types of treatments available to the health recommendations for longer life were well thought. Everyone lives to live longer. Gone are most of the foods and even many of the activities we regularly partake of now. No more meat, absolutely no sugar, veg only and even that isn't all recommended. Lea agonizes over a carrot at the market, hoping that since it will be shared by two people it won't be too indulgent. She leaves the grapefruit behind and plans to come back for one for her next Special Occasion. I'm all for eating healthy, but when a grapefruit and a carrot are too indulgent, how much LIFE is left?

Music is too stressful and has been replaced by relaxing Muzak; running wears out joints, but Pilates is still okay if performed carefully, but Swimlates was better.

This book was interesting and made me think about where my health may some day lead me. It also leads the reader to ponder how much control we actually have over our own lives, how much choice is really available to us. I didn't love this book, but I liked it really well.

What I've Heard- Life After Life

When I read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, I really loved it. As I said in my first review, it is quite complex and not an easy read, but well worth the effort. The audio version does not disappoint, but I would warn listeners that as complicated as the book is, the audio is no easier. At least while reading the book there are blank spaces between sections that denote a change in timeline or a flashback of some kind. The audio does not afford such space. I always say that I only (nearly only) listen to audiobooks I've already read so that I don't lose the thread and wind up confused about the plot or characters. In this instance, I would say that was doubly more important. I must caution audiobook enthusiasts against this audio version without first reading the printed version. I think reading it will just make it more clear and more enjoyable for you.

A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy

I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but where I live it is HOT! It being the middle of summer, A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy might not be the most obvious choice for book club, but it actually worked really well. Set in a tiny town on the northwest coast of Ireland, this book follows Chicky Starr's efforts to turn a crumbling estate into a holiday resort intended to attract weeklong vacationers. Told in sections each focusing on one guest or employee, the reader is given an opportunity to view the opening week of Stone House through different perspectives. We learn why Chicky thought opening the guest house would be a good idea, how her employees came to join the venture, and what brings each of the guests to such a place. The best part is they're all quite different.

This book is wonderful light, easy summer reading. The characters are sweet and I really liked the way Binchy pulls them all in from such diverse circumstances. A Week in Winter was the perfect book to follow Every Note Played which was much heavier and rather heartbreaking. Sometimes a reader needs a bit of a palate cleanser and this book came at just the right time for me. And it never hurts in summer to think cold thoughts!

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova

I finished this book a couple of days ago, but I needed a little time before I could write about it. Every Note Played is a novel written by Lisa Genova, bestselling author of Still Alice. In this newest book, Genova explores what it is really like living with, and dying from, ALS. Richard is a world-renowned concert pianist who has spent literally most of his 45 years at the piano, practicing in excess of ten hours a day and devoting his life to his music to the detriment of his family. Divorced from his wife Karina and estranged from his only daughter, Richard lives alone in a fancy Boston apartment when he isn't on tour playing the most prestigious concert halls in the world. As weakness begins to develop in his right hand, he desperately tries to deny anything is wrong until the music begins to suffer. His ALS is a devastating and relentless blow to all that he holds dear. When the course of the disease leaves him with no choice but to turn to his ex-wife, he must come to grips with who he was, who he now is, and what he will become before ultimately succumbing to his illness.

This book was fantastic and fascinating and frightening all at once. I was heartbroken reading the indignity and anguish that Richard endured as well as that of Karina and their daughter Grace. Passages like this one made me weep for him:

  

He'll never play the piano again. This is the loss he's imagined in microscopic detail from the first hints of this disease, the one that guts him through his center and keeps him from sleeping and makes him want to swallow a bottle of pills and end his life now. Because without the piano, how can he live?

And this one:

...he plays a single note, D, with his pinkie. He holds the key and the foot pedal down, listening to the singular sound, bold and three-dimensional at first, then drifting, dispersing, fragile, decaying. He inhales. He listens. The note is gone.

Every note played is a life and a death.

As I read this book, I carefully marked the names of the musical pieces mentioned by both Richard and Karina and then searched for each of them on YouTube. I cannot recommend enough that you do the same. It will give you a whole new appreciation for the talent that Richard possesses and then excruciatingly loses. 

Lest you think Genova is just sitting in her office making up all these stories, let me assure you she is quite qualified. She earned a degree in biopsychology from Bates College where she was the valedictorian and then went on to earn her doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard University. Genova interviewed many patients with ALS as well as their caregivers. She communicates their loss, their pain, and their fear. She also shares their bravery and courage and love. Reading the acknowledgements section of this book should not be skipped, no matter how tear-filled and snot-covered you might be at the end.

After Still Alice released, Genova gave a TED Talk about how to possibly prevent Alzheimer's disease. I think you will find it both interesting for the content and also for the opportunity to hear the author of this wonderful book speak.

Still Alice is still sitting in the pile on my bedside table, but it will quickly be making its way to the top. I can't wait to read more Lisa Genova.

Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner

A few years ago our family "cut the cord". We had been paying way too much for satellite television and we wanted to make a change so we decided to go with Netflix and Amazon. We have been so happy with our decision, but the only two things I miss are football and the news. I tried to watch a variety of local and cable news shows and one of my favorites was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. When I came across Adrienne Kisner's novel Dear Rachel Maddow, I was quite intrigued. A young woman named Brynn is a junior in high school struggling with a learning disability, the death of her older brother, and a difficult family life. When she writes an email to her favorite cable news host, Rachel Maddow, for a class assignment she discovers an excellent outlet for all she is feeling but can't say out loud. Of course, she doesn't actually send all these emails- that would be crazy. She writes them and then just leaves them in her drafts folder. Brynn tells Rachel all about her awful breakup with her first girlfriend, the terrible way her mother and step-father treat her expecting that she will follow the same fatal path her older brother took, and about Adam, the most obnoxious, evil boy at school who is determined to make Brynn's life as horrible as possible.

Brynn really does have it tough. It broke my heart to read the way her mother and step-father treated her, especially considering the recent death of her brother. How a mother can choose someone, anyone, over her own child is so far beyond my imagination. There are redeeming adults in Brynn's life- two of her brother's old friends, her teacher, her principal- that make it better, but I couldn't help but think there must have been more they could have done to help her.

Touching and emotional, this book was well-written and compelling. Lines like this one were so satisfying to read:

September 26 always sneaks up on me and jumps me in the bathroom.

Warning for those who don't enjoy reading foul language: this book has lots of it. She is an extremely frustrated teenage girl so it is fitting, but it is also abundant. And sometimes it totally works:

I'm going to grab agency by the nads and use that motherf---er to try to enact change.

I really liked this book, but I also wanted more. I feel like it ended to quickly and before the story was fully resolved. We can't know everything, but I wish I had known more. What else do I wish I knew? How did the real Rachel Maddow react to this book? I've looked for the answer to that question, but I can't find it anywhere. I hope she's read it and likes it, too.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

Described as the "Agatha Christie of our time", Ruth Ware has a reputation for thrilling suspense novels that are impossible to put down. In The Death of Mrs. Westaway, the mystery surrounds a completely unexpected letter informing Hal that a long lost relative has died and that she must attend the reading of the will. This should be the perfect solution to Hal's most desperate money problems except that she knows there has been some mistake. This Mrs. Westaway can't be her grandmother- her mother, recently passed herself, told her all about her grandparents and how they died before Hal was born. And yet. And yet Hal really needs the money. Just a few hundred pounds would rescue her from the scary loan shark that has been threatening her with bodily harm. And really, these people are so rich and have had so much their entire lives and Hal has so little. How much a difference can a few hundred pounds really make to them? The real trouble starts when Hal meets these people and begins to worry that there are many more secrets than just her own.

There was a lock on the door. Two, in fact. They were long, thick bolts, top and bottom

But they were on the outside.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is the first of Ware's novels that I've read, but it won't be the last. This book really was hard to put down with a pace that kept me interested enough to fly through the pages. I can't wait to read more Ruth Ware. Any suggestions for what I should read next?