They can find out with a blood test – but what will each of them do? Each of his children has a 50% chance of developing Huntington’s. Not only will the incurable disease kill him in about 10 years, but it’s genetic. Reluctantly, he goes to the doctor and is later diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. No way would Joe go there after his alcoholic mother died a horrible, lonely death in the state hospital. Rumours fly that he’s on drugs or an alcoholic. But in his early 40s, Joe begins to change. Joe is a police officer and is looking forward to retirement in about 10 years, hoping to enjoy life with the grandkids while he’s still young. Now JJ is married, Meghan is a ballet dancer, Katie teaches yoga and Patrick…well, nobody really knows what he does between bar work and fights. Joe and Rosie married young and had four children. the originals before the neighbourhood became super cool). The O’Briens are a normal Charlestown, Boston family. I feel kind of ashamed now that when I’ve met people with this disease, I haven’t stopped to consider and appreciate that beyond the symptoms there’s a normal, loving human inside.īut let me get back to the story. Lisa Genova has done an incredible job bringing the human face of Huntington’s disease to the fore beyond the chorea and the psychiatric effects. It’s so real, it feels like the O’Briens have come to life and you’re in their living room watching their lives unfold in a way that none of them expected. What I didn’t realise was how gripping this book was. Mentioning it to friends and family evoked a kind of reaction that I thought was generally reserved for One Direction/Backstreet Boys/Robbie Williams (depending on your generation), so I had an inkling that Inside the O’Briens I haven’t read (or seen) Still Alice, so I was completely in the dark when this ARC arrived from Simon & Schuster. Why I chose it: Thanks to Simon & Schuster Australia for the ARC and the introduction to a new-to-me author. The not-so-good: Some might say the ending, I say that it ended.
The good: Emotive and powerful, this book is full of tears, laughter and the shock of a deadly disease. What does this mean for his wife and their four adult children? Patrick is looking forward to retirement in ten years or so, but his dreams are cut short when he is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. In brief: The O’Briens are your normal, loving Boston family.
0 kommentar(er)
