Love Anthony, Lisa Genova

Title: Love Anthony

Author:  Lisa Genova

Publication Year: 2012

Publisher: Gallery Books / Simon and Schuster

Edition: eGalley

Setting:  Massachusetts

Source: Edelweiss

Date Completed: September/2012

Rating: 3.5/5

Recommend:  yes

As a fan of Lisa Genova's Still Alice, a moving novel about a woman with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I was anxious to see how she tackled the topic of Autism in, Love Anthony which releases later this month.

The story itself was more about the curve-balls life sometimes throws us and how sometimes if we pull ourselves up, it is possible to rebuild our lives and become stronger because of it.  The story takes place pretty much over a summer on the island of Nantucket. It involves a chance meeting of two women who are each dealing with a painful situation in their life.

Beth Ellis, is a wife and mother of three young girls who has experienced life dissapointments before. Her mother died several years earlier of breast cancer, just before Beth married Jimmy.  Now Jimmy has moved out and has been involved with a younger woman. Beth is trying to deal with situation by focusing on her girls. At times she drinks a bit too much, she spends time journaling and decides to try to write a novel. For her novel Beth decides to write about a little boy with autism.  It isn't until later that realizes that her inspiration came from a mother and her young boy that she had witnessed on the beach in Nantucket years earlier.

Olivia Donatelli is separated from her husband and has taken up photography while living on Nantucket. She is trying to ease the pain she feels with the loss of her son Anthony at the young age of 8.  Anthony was autistic, and years earlier it was Olivia and Anthony that Beth had seen on the beach. It was this mother and son who inspired Beth to write her novel, and it is through Beth's novel that the reader hears the unspoken thoughts of a little boy with autism, a little boy who never verbalized his thoughts when he was alive.

At the heart of this story we find two women trying to reach a point of acceptance in their lives given their current situation. Beth's character seemed a bit superficial to me, and I found it hard to connect with her story.  Olivia's story was more compelling. she was a mother seeking answers to the question, "what was her son's purpose here on this earth". "Why was he born with autism and then taken away at such a young age?"  I will admit that hearing Anthony's thoughts through Beth's book were touching. The epilogue did make me tear up a bit as well, and to me it was one of the best parts of the novel.  Love Anthony, is a good story, but I did have some issues with it. The biggest issue for me was that the novel, at times, had almost a almost chick-lit feel to it. Despite this it is still a story that many readers will be happy they read.