"Sometimes I feel as though the entire point of a woman’s life is to fall in love with people who will leave her. The only variation I can see is the ones who fight the love, and the ones who fight the leaving. It’s too late for me to be the first, and I’m trying not to be the second." Anna Quindlen’s 6th novel Every Last One is filled with the quiet detritus of every day life. “This is my life: the alarm goes off at five-thirty…” thinks Mary Beth Latham, the novel’s narrator. Wife to Glen, mother to daughter Ruby, 17, and twins Max and Alex, 14, Mary Beth spends her days spinning the every day plates that keep families in motion and trying to carve out a little time for herself, something to remind her that she is more than just a wife and mother. Mary Beth loves her family, but she doesn’t gloss over the difficulties of raising kids or trying to keep a marriage afloat. Ruby, an aspiring writer, is just about ready to leave home. The twins are as different as night and day and as Mary Beth finds herself focusing more and more on Max’s moodiness, she fails to acknowledge that Ruby’s ex-boyfriend, Kiernan, is trying too desperately to win Ruby back. Quindlen does a masterful job of leading the reader towards a climax that – even if you see it coming – shocks the hell out of you. It’s her careful layering of life’s little details – the slights, the carelessness, the mistakes we make, family dinners, blow-ups and meltdowns, reconciliations – that add power to the book. Mary Beth isn’t a saint. And just like the rest of us, she’s forced to put one foot in front of the other and keep on walking, even when it doesn’t seem possible to take another step. Anna Quindlen has the distinction of being the first author my book club ever read twelve years ago. We read Black and Blue for our first ever meeting and despite the subject matter (domestic abuse), we all really enjoyed it. A few years ago we read Rise and Shine, but I have to say I didn’t enjoy that one at all. Every Last One, while often difficult to read, confirms what I always thought about Quindlen’s talents though. It’s definitely worth a read.

Mary Beth Latham lives with her Opthamologist husband, Glen, and their three children: twin boys Alex and Max, 14 and Ruby, 17. Mary Beth has prided herself on building her life around that of her family’s. She owns a landscaping company and can be around whenever the kids need her. At the beginning of the story, Ruby is dating Kiernan and busy trying to find a dress to wear to the high school prom but it’s proving to be a much more difficult task than her mother ever thought it would be. With so many dress choices Ruby just can’t make up her mind. Ruby is finding Kiernan to be somewhat of a pain in the neck lately and doesn’t want to date him anymore or even attend the prom with him, although Kiernan has other plans and he intends on hanging onto Ruby for as long as humanely possible. Ruby is snubbing him, giving him the cold shoulder, sitting in her bedroom alone doing homework while Kiernan sits in the kitchen waiting. Kiernan is not taking the hint. In the meantime, Alex and Max are busy with school and sports until one afternoon Max arrives home with a note from his music teacher expressing his concern that Max appears to be deeply depressed. Mary Beth and Glen feel he is mistaken and chalk it up to typical teenage moodiness. Kiernan continues to be a permanent fixture in the Latham household as his own home is anything but the “typical” he craves. He doesn’t see his Dad much due to a divorce, doesn’t talk much to his mother and has no brothers or sisters. He NEEDS Ruby and everything that she represents: an intact family, parents who love each other and their children, siblings, confidence, and happiness. Kiernan parks himself at the Latham home even when Ruby isn’t there or upstairs bathing, listening to music, or completing homework assignments. Max and Alex keep pestering Beth as to why Ruby is so mean to Kiernan. Life is continuing on day-after-day until another teacher expresses their concern over Max’s seemingly depressed mood so Mary Beth and Glen decide there could be more to it and arrange for Max to begin counselling with Dr. Vagelos when suddenly tragedy strikes and Mary Beth is blindsided by a: “...shocking act of violence.” This is such a normal family in every way and just goes to show that even though we think we are comfortable in our lives and that we’re invincible, bloodshed can happen to ruin what we thought of as our own perfect little worlds.

I have read past titles from this author, i.e. Black and Blue, but found this book particularly boring and uninteresting. As I forced myself to continue reading, I hoped against hope that I would find something to interest me. I just could not find anything about this book worth my time to finish it. Sorry I wasted my time and money.

Quindlen creates an average, even "boring" family, filled with children, chores, work and the intensity of unrequited adolescent love. When the unimaginable horror is revealed, the characters are portrayed in an honest manner; flawed, confused, hurting but resilient. As the story reaches its conclusion, the similarities between earlier events and present day are subtle but present, leaving the reader to wonder "what might have been" if only other choices had been made.... This is a book that begs for discussion....a great book club choice, or one to read with a friend