RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!
This is a sweet book about the power of love. The story is told from three different points of view: Anna's, Eve's and Clementine's.
Anna is a young woman who has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and her twin brother decides to take her to a nursing home where there is another young person who has some kind of dementia. Anna used to be a paramedic, and little by little she discovered that her memory was failing. When she was diagnosed, she left her husband, Aiden, as their marriage was already failing.
The parts told from Anna's perspective tell us her life from the moment she gets to the nursing home.
There there is Eve, a young woman, whose position has been harmed as her husband, a financer, had tricked people out of their money through a Ponzi scheme. When the truth was discovered, Richard killed himself. Now Eve's position is precarious, so she has to move to a small flat with her girl, Clementine, and finds a position as a cook-cleaner in the nursing home.
Through the book we discover that Anna meets Luke, a young man who suffers from a kind of dementia affecting his language. They become closer. Anna intends to kill herself, but it is Luke who makes her see that life is always worth living. They become lovers, and when their families learn about it, Luke's sister is okay with it, but Jack, her brother, disapproves as he wants to protect his sister.
The novel in present time shows that Luke and Anna are kept apart, and Anna feels it is unfair, so she does everything to get them together as she can tell that they are good to each other. Through Anna's accounts we discover that Anna got pregnant, and she tried to find Luke to tell him, but she reached the top-floor room, and by mistake she jumped out of the window. Everybody thought that she had tried to kill herself for some reason, and that is why Jack asked for her and Luke to be locked in their rooms at night.
Eve secretly helps them to spend time with each other because she really believes that they love each other even though they have dementia. When Anna is injured while taking a vase of flowers, Eve is fired. However, Eve goes to see Jack and tries to tell him how important it is for Anna and Luke to be together.
When Eve goes to visit the nursing home some weeks later, things have changed, and now Anna and Luke share a room even if sometime they don't know each other.
Apart from this, in the novel Eve has to fight the problems with her daughter and the consequences of Richard's actions. Eve is despised by everybody and her former friends refuse any contact with her. Then at school Clementine, who is a very bright little girl, suffers the abuse of a girl, Miranda, who reveals that her father killed himself because he was a bad man. Clementine reacts by attacking the girl, and Eve tries to talk to her and tries to help her. She goes to a therapist, and even one of the old men in the nursing home helps when he talks to his late wife, and Clementine starts telling her father about how angry she is but how much she loved him.
At the end of the book Eve has a new job and has moved to a small house. Clementine is in a different school and she is happy about it. And Eve has started a relationship with the gardener, Angus.
I really enjoyed the book. It was really moving.
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