DNF: The Art of Saying Goodbye by Ellyn Bache

[amazon_image id="0062033689" link="true" target="_blank" size="large" ]The Art of Saying Goodbye: A Novel[/amazon_image]

She was the thread that wove their tapestry together.

With a group of women as diverse as the ladies from Brightwood Trace, you might not think them to be close. There’s Julianne, a nurse with an unsettling psychic ability that allows her to literally feel what her patients feel, Andrea, a strong fortress sheltering a faltering core, Ginger, a mother torn between being a stay-at-home mom or following her career aspirations, and Iona, the oldest, whose feisty, no-nonsense attitude disarms even toughest of the tough. Not exactly the ingredients for the most cohesive cocktail . . . Until you add Paisely, the liveliest and friendliest of the clan, who breathed life into them all.

But when their glowing leader falls ill with cancer, it’s up to these women to do what Paisely has done for them since the beginning: lift her up. Overcoming and accepting the inevitability of loss, the women draw closer than ever; finding together the strength to embrace and cherish their lives with acceptance, gratitude and most importantly, love. Finally living with the vigor that Paisely has shown them from the start, they are able to see their lives in a new light, while learning to say goodbye to the brightest star they’ve ever known. Over the course of just three months, these four women will undergo a magnificent transformation that leaves nobody unchanged.

As I mentioned in my initial thoughts post, I didn’t really like how this book began. I continued to read a bit more, but I never connected with any of the characters and ended up putting it aside to read something else, intending to come back to it. I never have. It’s a bit of a let down, too, because I enjoy books that explore friendships between women and this one looks like a winner from the outside. The execution just didn’t jive with my style, unfortunately.

The book starts with a jerky narration as we meet five women and the point-of-view shifts back and forth between each of them. It’s hard to know who is narrating from one paragraph to the next, which makes for difficult (and SLOW) reading. Things did seem to get better after that initial chapter as the narration settled into just one or two characters at a time. But, I never really connected with any of them. I never truly felt their friendship.

I might attribute it to the season. It is summer and this is kind of a heavy read. But, I recently read Hello, Goodbye, which also deals with end-of-life issues, and I absolutely LOVED it. So, I’m not sure I can hang my hat on that. I just have to say that this book did not work for me, but not to say that I won’t try reading it at another time. Right now, I could not get into it.

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