"A beautifully drawn study of what is at risk when you lose control of your own life. Unique, gripping, and viscerally moving -- this impressive debut novel heralds the arrival of an extremely talented writer." —Jodi Picoult,New York Times bestselling author of The Storyteller and Lone Wolf
I recently received a copy of Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer for review.
Destined to be a book club favorite, a heart-wrenching debut about two people who must decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice for love. Mara Nichols, a successful lawyer, and devoted wife and adoptive mother, has recently been diagnosed with a terminal disease. Scott Coffman, a middle school teacher, has been fostering an eight-year-old boy while the boy’s mother serves a jail sentence. Scott and Mara both have five days left until they must say good-bye to the ones they love the most. Through their stories, Julie Lawson Timmer explores the individual limits of human endurance, the power of relationships, and that sometimes loving someone means holding on, and sometimes it means letting go.
I was drawn to this book because I will be able to relate to the character Scott soon. In this book Scott and his wife are temporary guardians for a young boy because the older brother is off at college fulfilling his dreams of being a basketball player and the mother is in jail. My wife and I are currently being licensed as foster parents in Florida and we have already accepted two young brothers as our first placement. Although we don’t have the kids in our home as of writing this review, we have been through a complex and complicated process to become licensed foster parents and part of that process has been accepting children into our home and loving them like our own, and then returning them to their parents when a judge deems it appropriate.
I cannot necessarily relate to Mara’s character, as she is a victim of Huntington’s disease, but her story is pretty amazing. Both Scott and Mara have 5 days left; five days before Scott’s ward Curtis goes back to his mother and five days before Mara plans on ending her life before Huntington’s disease destroys her completely. The story is well written, it tugs at your heart strings, and brings life into perspective and reminds us all to be grateful for what we have because someone out there always has it worse then you.
The only negative critique I can give this book is exactly why these two major characters are in the same book. They are not related and they don’t live in the same city. They just happen to be in an online parenting forum for foster and adoptive parents (Mara and her husband Tom adopted a daughter and Scott and his wife were guardians of a young boy). That’s their only link. And in the book they only communicate a few times. But my question is why? Why are their stories related? Is it just because the author wanted two stories where these characters both had five days left? I was disappointed at the end, waiting for the moment Scott and Mara have a climactic conversation or experience, but it just doesn’t happen. Maybe Timmer chose to have these two characters in the same book to show that even though they don’t know each other, they can still understand each other because they have one common thread-having children they did not create themselves.
Both stories are interesting and touch on the human condition and showcase that there are families like this all over the world. Families that aren’t related by blood, but related by love. The fact that Scott’s and Mara’s stories don’t merge with each other doesn’t really impact the story that much to the point it’s not worth reading. Because it is. It reminds us all that not every story has a happy ending. Not everything works out the way it should, or the way we hope. All we can do is deal with the cards we are dealt.
I recently received a copy of Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer for review. There was no monetary compensation.
...Guest Reviewer: Kara Kelly
About the Author
Julie Lawson Timmer grew up in Stratford, Ontario, and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband Dan, their four teenaged children and two badly-behaved labs. By day, she works as in-house legal counsel. By night, she is a writer, mom and stepmom, dreadful cook and fledgling CrossFitter. FIVE DAYS LEFT is her first novel.
