If You Were Here by Alice Peterson

If You Were Here by Alice Peterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 1 day

Pages - 400

Publisher - Simon & Schuster UK

Source - Netgalley

Blurb from Goodreads

‘I can toast to my future, but the thundercloud over my head, the threat of a storm, will follow me like a shadow wherever I go. The truth is, I have a potential bomb in my bag, and who knows when or where it will go off’

When her daughter Beth dies suddenly, Peggy Andrews is left to pick up the pieces and take care of her granddaughter Flo. But sorting through Beth’s things reveals a secret never told: Beth was sick, with the same genetic condition that claimed her father’s life, and now Peggy must decide whether to keep the secret or risk destroying her granddaughter’s world.

Five years later, Flo is engaged and ready to pack up her life and move to New York with her high-flying fiancé. Peggy never told Flo what she discovered, but with Flo looking towards her future, Peggy realises it’s time to come clean and reveal that her granddaughter’s life might also be at risk.

As Flo struggles to decide her own path, she is faced with the same life-altering questions her mother asked herself years before: If a test could decide your future, would you take it?


My Review

Told from three points of view, Peggy is the granny, Beth the mother and Flo the granddaughter. Peggy nursed her husband as he battled through Huntington's disease not telling her daughter. Now Beth and her husband are gone Peggy discovers Beth knew and Flo has a 50/50 chance of getting the condition. She never told Beth and now she has to battle with telling Flo and the consequences. The chapters alternate between Peggy and Flo, we hear from Beth in diary entries from a kid to up until she died.

This book is emotive and totally pulls at the heartstrings. In Peggy we see the role of the carer, the struggles she faced in the time with her husband, love, devotion and watching this condition take away a piece of the person in different ways. In Beth we see the kid watching her father become unwell and how it affected her growing up and then her own experiences. Flo is oblivious to everything, living with the man of her dreams and ready to uproute before everything comes crashing down.

I think with this book it is the dimensions to it all, living with the condition, living with someone knowing they have it, growing up with it but not knowing and how that is viewed through a youngsters eyes. The impact it has on relationships, both families and partners. And the personal battle, journey and emotions if you had a bombshell like this dropped on you, you may potentially have a life changing condition and you are helpless to do anything about it. Would you find out or live in ignorance? No matter what you choose you also cannot control how the people in your life will react and that was a huge eye opener, none of us know what is around the corner.

Books like this make me want to read up more on the condition especially when treatments are mentioned and research. There is still so much work that needs done and in the last few years they have made some great progress, it is a fascinating read both this story and the academic articles out there. I do enjoy a book that provokes an emotive response but also makes you want to go and look into the condition the book centres on. My first dance with this author, it won't be my last, 4/5 for me this time.

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Inside The O'Briens by Lisa Genova

Inside the O'Briens: A Novel by Lisa Genova
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 352

Publisher - Gallery Books


Blurb from Goodreads

Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and respected officer, Joe begins experiencing bouts of disorganized thinking, uncharacteristic temper outbursts, and strange, involuntary movements. He initially attributes these episodes to the stress of his job, but as these symptoms worsen, he agrees to see a neurologist and is handed a diagnosis that will change his and his family’s lives forever: Huntington’s Disease.

Huntington’s is a lethal neurodegenerative disease with no treatment and no cure. Each of Joe’s four children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting their father’s disease, and a simple blood test can reveal their genetic fate. While watching her potential future in her father’s escalating symptoms, twenty-one-year-old daughter Katie struggles with the questions this test imposes on her young adult life. Does she want to know? What if she’s gene positive? Can she live with the constant anxiety of not knowing?

As Joe’s symptoms worsen and he’s eventually stripped of his badge and more, Joe struggles to maintain hope and a sense of purpose, while Katie and her siblings must find the courage to either live a life “at risk” or learn their fate.


My Review

Joe O'Brien is an everyday kind of guy, he's a cop, he has a family and he is fourty four years old. When symptoms can no longer be ignored or be passed off Joe is tested for Huntington's disease and is positive. The story follows pre diagnosis, the introduction to Joe and his family and the progression of the disease and how it can affect a families lives.

I love this author, she takes hard subjects, diseases and brings them to the reader in an informative way that keeps the knowledge and seriousness of the disease at the forefront whilst giving it a human face. You get to know and care about a family and watch them try to deal with this condition, manage it, and deal with their own feelings as well as the aspertions from some of the town folk.

Joe and his family go on an emotional journal taking the reader with them, it packs quite a punch knowing it is a fictional story based around a very real condition. Not only has Genova brought the spotlight to a condition I hadn't had a great deal of knowledge on, she has also set up a fund for it. This lady does fantastic work educating through fiction and I hope she continues to write for a long time. 4/5 for me, thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review, this book is available to buy now.

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