Every Last One

This book was one that you read without hesitation. Contains so many conflicting emotions and actions.

This is a very tragic story that makes you question how the impact of violence could affect your life and the ones you love. It is not a comfortable subject matter but one handled surprisingly well by the author. I thought the narrating main character would in reality be suffering from ptsd for many months or even years following such devastation but this was not even hinted about in the story. In all honesty I don't think anyone would be able to move on in life quite as easily as she did but of course it is just a novel. You might enjoy this book if you like a tear jerker. This was too depressing for my taste.

Really enjoyed this book - was so surprised right about halfway through the book and then the title made sense.

Mary Beth Latham seems like a typical mom, with normal, well-adjusted kids and a loving, successful husband. Always surrounded by friends, this family is the hub of much social activity. The kids include Ruby, the seventeen year old writer, and Max and Alex, fraternal twins. Alex is an athlete and Max is a drummer who doesn't quite fit in. Then Max becomes depressed, and the family's focus turns toward him. Meanwhile, Ruby's ex-boyfriend, Kiernan, a boy from a dysfunctional family, gloms onto the Lathams in an excessive way. But nobody wants to reject him. He is so needy. Yet he is always there. Staying for dinner, watching, snapping photographs, sneaking into rooms and leaving gifts. As the story moves gradually toward something that seems to always be there, lurking, and just out of reach, I found myself holding my breath. Thinking "oh, no, don't go there." But of course, events proceed and suddenly, and in unexpected ways, we are on a crash course toward disaster. Afterwards, in horror, we come to fully understand what has happened. This reveal was done so skillfully, showing bits and pieces to the reader until the full picture has emerged. And then we see the reality slowly seeping into Mary Beth's awareness and watch her as she begins to pick up the pieces. Looking back, after the fact, we have to ask: what, if anything, could have changed things? Could any of these characters have prevented the inevitable? And what now? As Mary Beth tries to make sense of this changed life of hers, we feel so connected to her and empathetic to her plight. This author has a way of creating characters that are flawed, yet sympathetic, vulnerable, yet strong. She demonstrates once again that no topic is off-limits or too difficult to handle. With her latest novel, Every Last One: A Novel, she pulls it off flawlessly.

I knew from other reviews and from the book descriptions that something terrible was going to happen in this book. As I fell in love with the characters I kept waiting and looking for the inevitable to occur. When it finally did I was shocked and grief stricken--and so very, very angry--all of the emotions (albeit on a much smaller scale) that Ms. Quindlen wants us to feel. Part of me wanted to put the book down right then and there and to forget about what it made me feel. The other part drew me like a magnet to keep on reading through tears and raw emotion to the very end. What a magnificent gift it must be to be able to write like this. Ms. Quindlen forces the reader to dig down, to think about the unthinkable and to come face to face with the reality of all of our lives. It is terrible, it is beautiful, it is real. This book is also a testament to the strength of women and to the resilience of the human spirit. Gut-wrenching and tragic but a must-read nevertheless.

I have read every one of Anna Quindlen's novels. Every Last One is, by far, the most compelling and beautifully written of any she's written. It is the story of one family that is impacted by a horrific act of violence. Their resultant grief and struggle to survive is told with great empathy and insight. Quindlen's language is poetic and languorous. The book is a page-turner but the reader is never rushed. We are there with the characters and we face what they face, in their own time and in their own way. Mary Beth Latham is a mother whose life revolves around her family. Though she has a successful landscaping business, her priority is her family. She is dedicated to her children: 17 year old Ruby, and the fraternal twins, 14 year-olds Alex and Max. She has been married to her physician husband, Glen, for close to twenty-five years. The marriage is happy enough but Mary Beth's focus is her children. She loves the routine of cooking, going to the children's sports events and opening her home to her children's friends. Though they are twins, Alex and Max could not be more different. Alex is popular and easy-going. He excels at every sport that he tries. Max is quiet and introverted, not good at sports and not very popular. He takes drum lessons and seems to enjoy this activity. With good reason, Mary Beth suspects that Max is depressed and takes him to a therapist who specializes in the treatment of twins. Ruby is a senior in high school, a unique individual with her own flowering style. She is active in her school's literary journal and writes poetry. She has two best friends, Rachel and Sara. Next year she will be off to college. Her grades are so good that she is likely to be accepted anywhere she applies. For several years Ruby has had a boyfriend named Kiernan, the son of a former friend of Mary Beth's. Kiernan is like a fourth child in the family until the time when Ruby decides to break up with him. The break-up is traumatic for Kiernan. He begins to drink heavily, sneaks into the Latham house and Ruby's car to leave photos and presents for Ruby. One evening, in the middle of the night, he remains outside the Latham house howling and crying for Ruby. Mary Beth comforts him and sends him home. It starts to get creepy for Ruby and she attempts to tell her mother but Mary Beth is too involved with Max's depression to really understand the severity of issues with Kiernan. On New Year's Eve, a horrific event of violence occurs that impacts the whole Latham family. Quindlen's description of grief is so right-on that it is very painful to read. She is able to draw out the characters' feelings over time just as the feelings of real grief are played out. This is not done in one or two pages, but for the whole second half of the book. The first half of the book is the prologue to the event and the second half of the book is about the impact of the event. The first half of the book may seem slow as it sets the

Anna Quindlen captures the pulse of family interactions in a way that is realistic. The narrator can be acutely self-aware without seeming whining or disdainful. In "Every Last One," the story is narrated by Mary Beth Latham, mother of three. She has a faithful, stoic husband, her own business in gardening, and yet, this mom is feeling the slightest hints of emptiness, loneliness, as her children grow up and away. The eldest, Ruby, is a writer. At seventeen, she is growing into a young woman known for her quirks, her artistic temperament and her ability at school. Her private manners with her family, however, reveal her to be as headstrong and rude and arrogant as any teen can be. The twins, Alex and Max, are fraternal. They share very little except a room. Alex is the athlete; Max is the musician. Alex is popular; Max is on the fringes of his school's society. They are not exactly friends though they are brothers. The book moves through family crisis and angst over Max's depression, Alex's cockiness, and Ruby's insistence that parents just chill when it comes to her personal life. Her personal life includes a lost-puppy boyfriend, Kiernan, who has a special place in the Latham household although as readers we get to know a wide circle of people. Quindlen handles a large cast with clarity and sympathy. My only reservation about the book is a result of the back cover's blurb, which I felt contained an unnecessary spoiler. For the pure enjoyment of watching a family that seems perfect but that is as dysfunctional as any other, avoid reading the jacket blurb. I am a big fan of Anna Quindlen's works. "Every Last One" is a quick read, full of emotional moments and insights into the way women bond and think. Some of the setting details seem thrown in to perhaps update the story now and then, but big deal--this is a terrific book.

First of all, I wish the jacket blurb did not reveal as much of the plot of this fine novel as it does. If you are reading my review before you read Every Last One: A Novel I suggest that you skip the blurbs and go directly to the novel and allow yourself the reading enjoyment that comes with of a well constructed plot which unfolds masterfully with beautiful prose. Anna Quindlen has crafted a truly stunning novel that really speaks to women. The first person narrative of the main character Mary Beth goes straight to the heart. Mary Beth is a very identifiable character with whom many women readers will without a doubt relate. Her story is real and believable. I felt as if I was experiencing real life through the eyes and mind of Mary Beth ~ she and her family and friends come alive on each page of Every Last One: A Novel. The first 100 pages or so, I must admit that the pacing was rather slow for me and I wasn't fully engaged in the story but because I had read the cover blurb and was expecting some kind of intense action, I kept on with the narrative and was looking for hints (and found them) of what was to unfold. The story did become gripping and the action explosive. Still I was impressed with the author's skill in developing her plot and layering it with the intimate feelings of her main character as a wife, a mother, a friend, a gardener, a landscaper with her own business ~ really the life of a sensitive woman who could be any one of us. I did in fact relate very much to some of the experiences felt by Mary Beth. I don't want to share those for it would be a disservice to the plot but Anna Quindlen really captures the raw, authentic emotion of those intimate moments that I too have experienced and I applaud her for presenting them with such tenderness and insight. I think Every Last One: A Novel is a remarkable piece of women's fiction that any women can appreciate and cherish for its personal and honest nature. I enthusiastically give my 5 stars.