One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper – 324 pages
Book Blurb:
Silver has begun to accept that life isn’t going to turn out as he expected. The exwife he’s remained friends with is about to marry a terrific guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter has just confided in him that she’s pregnantโbecause he’s the one she cares least about letting down. As the wedding looms and the pregnancy sinks in, this broken family struggles, bonds, and wrestles with each member’s individual anxieties. Lives begin anew, change radically, or, in Silver’s caseโas he discovers that he could die at any moment without an operation he refuses to haveโmay be about to end in an instant.
My Review: 4 stars
Jonathan Tropper does it again! He is so good at creating character driven novels and getting deep into their psyche. With raw wit he shares a sad story about Silver (we never learn why he doesnโt use his first name) and how his loneliness since his divorce has landed him at a worn down apartment building filled with other divorced men. These men have such a vast vacancy in their lives and we learn how they cope and in some cases, try and recover and move on. Denise, the ex wife was an insightful, important character who had happily moved on. Silverโs daughter Casey was a perfectly portrayed 18 year old and through her, we watch Silver become alive while in reality heโs literally dying. Fast, entertaining read.
Quotes I liked:
The dull, defeated expression that had become his default in recent years disappeared, and sheโd seen, well, her Silver.โ
– โShe rolls onto her side to watch him sleep. His face loses something in slumber, and he looks unfamiliar to her, like a word repeated endlessly until its syllables disintegrate into meaningless sounds.โ
– โWe donโt stop loving people just because we hate them, but we donโt stop hating them either.โ
– โBut more often than not, Silve seems to get a pass just for being Silver. She chafes at the injustice of his having acquired favored-nation status simply by being an irresponsible asshole of a father…โ
Every day I clean the Winchestersโ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor. I try to ignore how Nina makes a... read more
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