Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer
This novel splits between two different characters both
counting down to an event in five days.
Mara is a lawyer, wife, and mother who was diagnosed with Huntington's
disease four years ago. Mara is planning
on killing herself in five days. Scott
is a teacher who has five days left with his foster son before he is returned
to his birth mother. Both characters
have five days left to say goodbye to their loved ones.
Scott is dreading giving up his
foster son back to his birthmother.
Scott’s wife is currently pregnant.
Scott comes across as caring more
about his foster child than his pregnant wife and unborn child.
I found Mara’s character much more interesting than Scott’s
story. The author does a good job of drawing
you in describing how Mara goes from this successful lawyer to losing control
of her own body. She has to buy Depends
for when she accidently pees on herself; She is horrified that she can no
longer control her bladder. She is
shaking her arms nonstop and walking funny, like she is drunk, without
realizing it. She knows that she is going to keep
deteriorating until she is in a nursing home.
Mara does not want to be in the nursing home, feeling she would be a
burden to her husband and an embarrassment to her young daughter. She decides the best thing to do would be to
commit suicide before she loses even more control over her body. Nobody has any idea that this is what she is
planning and it is difficult to decide what is worse: for Mara to commit
suicide before her disease gets worse, causing her family to lose the time they
had left with her; or for her to keep deteriorating as her family watches her
get worse and worse until she can no longer take care of herself.
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