My local library, the one I'm on the board for, has a winter reading challenge going on. It's 16 books from mid-January through the end of February, 12 specific prompts and 4 free choices. One of the prompts is "A book less than 100 pages."
Now this wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be, since I wasn't in the mood for a classic (and a lot o those are just over 100 pages) and I wasn't in the mood for a children's book. I asked on a Facebook group for readers and was delighted to find out that Fredrik Backman has some novellas that could work.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer tells of Noah and his grandfather, sitting on a bench in a square that gets smaller by the day. It's filled with random objects of importance that don't actually belong in a square, stories of Noah's grandmother and her garden, and visits from Noah's father, Ted. As the square grows smaller, the family realizes they must learn how they can say goodbye.
Without mincing words, this book is going to make you cry. Whether you've been touched by Alzheimer's or dementia, or whether it is something you've only read about, the book is going to tear at your heart, watching as grandfather fades and begins to forget the things that mattered to him. It is so worth the read, but you'll need tissues to get through it all.
Comments
Post a Comment