Five Days Left

Julie Lawson Timmer

Mara Nichols is a successful lawyer, devoted wife, and adoptive mother who has received a life-shattering diagnosis. Scott Coffman, a middle school teacher, has been fostering an eight-year-old boy while the boy’s mother serves a jail sentence. Scott and Mara both have five days left until they must say good-bye to the ones they love the most.

Through their stories, Julie Lawson Timmer explores the individual limits of human endurance and the power of relationships, and shows that sometimes loving someone means holding on, and sometimes it means letting go (from Netgalley)

My Thoughts

What a remarkable story about about two families who both have only five days left to deal with an unimaginable situation. Mara Nichols has Huntington’s disease and in five days time, is going to kill herself so her family does not have to become her caretaker. Scott Coffman and his wife Laurie have been foster parents to Curtis. Curtis’s Mom is getting out of jail, and the Coffman’s have five days left to spend with him.

This is the story of how these two families spend these five days. The only connection between the two is a support chat room. While their issues are different, both families are dealing with something that most people around them will never encounter, and therefore, never understand.

While the main focus is on Mara and Scott, we do get to see how the situations they are in impacts their whole family. I found this to be both gut wrenching and uplifting. A powerful story about love and family.

A very impressive debut from an author I will surely follow.

My thanks to Putnam Group - Penguin, via Netgalley, for allowing me to read this in exchange for an unbiased review.