I'm not a good book reader even though I enjoy doing this a lot actually. I don't really have the patience for it, and when I do...Often something else comes along for distraction. It has been multiple times already that I had started a book on a trip somewhere (because that is usually when I find the time and dedication to actually sit and read something) and that I end up finishing it only on the next trip a year later.
This book called 'All the blue in the sky' by the writer Mélissa de Costa was a different story. It was recommended to me by a friend who also gave the note 'be sure to read the last 50 pages by yourself, because you will cry your eyeballs out.
Well, who am I to not give this crying session a decent try right?
Thecactuslounge.net
The book has 640 pages and it took me about 5 days to finish the book. Pretty decent score I would say for someone who usually doesn't give this enough time and space to for it?
The story
Don't worry, I'm going to start with the part that you can read on the back of the book. No spoilers as yet.
So the story is about this young guy Emile who receives the diagnosis young alzheimer. This means he will start to forget more and more and eventually will die within an expected two years. He doens't want to wait out this moment and stay in the hospital as a lab rat so he decides to not bother his family with his disease and leave.
He sets an advertisement int he newspaper and a young woman called Joanne decides to join him on his final route.
Stop reading here if you don't want any spoilers!
Bol.com
I guess that I read this amount of pages in such a short time already hints that I liked this book. The way of writing is easy! The funny thing is when you read book reviews of this book that the critics are always so sour I find. 'The theme doesn't always fit the story' and 'there are so many conversations that don't add on to the story'
Who cares about that? Maybe it is because all of these random factors are brought in that the story is so nice. And yeah the shifting back and forth in from who the story is told (sometimes through the current of Emile, sometimes through the current of Joanne, and also sometimes through the past of both of them) does add on the story of people forgetting stuff and finding random fragments back.
Because that is what Alzheimers does. It brings in different random moments and looses the chonology of it. And that is just fine.
So did I like the book? A big yes!
Did I cry my eyeballs out? Nehhh, not really. But I can not deny a tear running down here and there.
And that is when the story has grabbed you without doing all that fancy.
I need to build in more reading time, because I really did enjoy diving in a book again!