Five Days Left Paperback – August 4, 2015

I read and enjoyed Julie Lawson Timmer's Untethered last year, and I had actually bought this book first. Unfortunately, I filed it away in the "sad books" category in my own head and was waiting for the "right time" to read it. Thank goodness I finally found the right time because I felt deeply connected to the two storylines.Mara has been diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, and Scott has spent the last year being the best foster parent ever. As I walked through Five Days with each of these characters and their families, I found myself repeatedly asking - what would I do in their shoes? This book would make the perfect book club read because there are so many points of discussion - foster families/adoption, degenerative illnesses and marriage, illnesses and families/parenting, and many others.I'm hesitant with sad books. I'm skeptical because I've read many that end up feeling trite or even just too easy. There was never an easy or pat moment. The writing was raw at times. It was moving. It was engaging, and it was tender. It was honest and powerful, and I'm so grateful that I read it.

This book will make you think, what would I do if I was given one of the most horrific diseases known to man? Would I fight until the last breath to watch my child grow? If does make you question all your ideals. It also has another side story so two voices with two different sets of problems. It shows how people from all over the world are connecting online and becoming friends. This is heartfelt with a lot of thought and feeling. The only thing I had a problem with is the main characters of course were very rich lawyers married to a doctor. No novel is ever written with everyday Walmart worker or even an insurance salesman. Other than that the story is heartbreaking and you will remember it long after you read the last page.

Five Days Left is one of the most powerful, heart-wrenching books I've ever read. From the first page to the last, the stories of Mara and Scott will pull on your heartstrings, laughing, crying, loving, and feeling all the emotions on the page. Mara is a young wife and mother who was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease 4 years earlier. Her disease has reached a point from which she feels there is no return, and that nothing awaits her future, or her family's future, than humiliation and suffering. Scott and his wife Laurie are expecting their first child, and for the past year they have been foster parents to Curtis, who they have grown to love. The book takes place over 5 days, and as each day unfolds both Mara and Scott are faced with life-altering decisions about how they wish to move on from the painful, difficult challenges they face each day. Their stories will take you on an emotional roller coaster that is filled with love; the love for their spouses, their children, and ultimately, the decisions they make to honor those they love. The author gives us great insight into the struggles of living and coping with such a devastating illness. Both of their stories are told with compassion, realism, and empathy. You will need to steel your heart to read this book, but you will be so glad that you did.

This is a book of two stories, intertwined by an Internet chat room. One story features Mara, a successful lawyer and mother of five-year-old Laks. The second is about Scott, a teacher in Detroit's inner-city school district.Mara's life collapses when she is diagnosed with Huntington's, a horrific disease that causes one's body and brain to shut down, ultimately leading to death. Sometimes called Huntington's Chorea, it is characterized by continuing memory loss, as well as increasing involuntary loss of body control.As the disease progresses, Mara has several mortifying experiences which cause her to question living through the stages of Huntington's, ultimately leading to life in a nursing home with no memory, until her body completely shuts down. She cannot bear the thought of her loving husband and precious daughter making obligatory visits to a facility to see a once brilliant lawyer and loving wife and mother flailing her limbs with no knowledge of her family's identity. She realizes that she must make a decision while her mind is still functioning.Scott and his pregnant wife are foster parents to a young boy from the inner city, whose mother is in jail for a year. He is passionate about the boy and his older brother and cannot bear to return him to his mother. His wife, an unsympathetic character, is anxious for Scott to focus on his "real" family, which she feels cannot happen while Little Man is under her roof. They, too, have a decision to make.The book is well written, but for various reasons, I felt emotionally detached. The chat room for me was merely a contrivance that gave the author a vehicle to tell two otherwise unrelated stories. I should have felt great sympathy for Mara, but she began to annoy me. With all her thoughts about the wonders of the chat room and her closeness to Scott, she never told anyone about her plight. From personal experience, I know how anonymous chat rooms can offer support, but that assumes that the participants are open and honest. She was neither.Scott was perhaps too zealous and altruistic. Of all the characters, though, I found him the most sympathetic. His wife left me cold.The ending was predictable, almost from the beginning. Perhaps I had a problem with the length of the book. Although I read it overnight, I felt like five days had passed. The constant repetition was tiresome, and I found myself saying, "Get on with it already."This book will have a large audience because I know that I am expressing a minority opinion. To me, Five Days Left is Jodi Picoult Lite.

I couldn't put this book down after I downloaded it on my Kindle. The two stories were poignant and thought-provoking. Mara is a mother of a young girl who is suffering from a fatal genetic disease. Scott is struggling with sending his foster son back to the boy's mother. For different reasons, both characters are facing a five day deadline that will result in life changing decisions for both.The decisions these characters make are reaction to events that they have no control over. Each of the stories ends in a predictable way yet there are some questions that remain unanswered.One character is dealing with the effects of Huntington's disease the other with the pain of foster parenting. The decisions these characters make are heartbreaking.

My favorite book! I recommended it as a Book Club book and it was loved by all.

What a book! A beautifully written heart wrenching read with characters I don't want to leave behind. What happened next?

This book held my attention from its first sentence, well written, great characterisation, for the first time in years I cried when reading. Fabulous first book by Julie Lawson Timmer!

Loved it but made me cryGood Story, well writtenMakes you think how lucky you are and should have nothing to moan about

I read this book for my book club. Not a book I would have picked for myself but was a good read. The story took awhile to get me hooked, but then I needed to see how it ended.I felt the story of Mara was much larger and more developed than the storyline of Scott, which I found a little disappointing. I also was expecting there to be more of a connection to the 2 storylines than there were.This book didn't blow my mind, and I wouldn't read it again, but it was interesting. And provided some interesting conversations for our book club and makes you think about what you would do in different situations.