The Things We Keep
A Novel
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4.1 • 220 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
With huge heart, humor, and a compassionate understanding of human nature, Sally Hepworth delivers a page-turning novel about the power of love to grow and endure even when faced with the most devastating of obstacles. You won’t forget The Things We Keep.
Anna Forster is only thirty-eight years old, but her mind is slowly slipping away from her. Armed only with her keen wit and sharp-eyed determination, she knows that her family is doing what they believe to be best when they take her to Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. But Anna has a secret: she does not plan on staying. She also knows there's just one another resident who is her age, Luke. What she does not expect is the love that blossoms between her and Luke even as she resists her new life. As her disease steals more and more of her memory, Anna fights to hold on to what she knows, including her relationship with Luke.
Eve Bennett, suddenly thrust into the role of single mother to her bright and vivacious seven-year-old daughter, finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind house. When she meets Anna and Luke, she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna's and Luke's families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them. Eve has her own secrets, and her own desperate circumstances that raise the stakes even higher.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hepworth's second novel (after The Secrets of Midwives) explores issues of self-determination and identity through an unconventional tearjerker of a love story. Diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 39, Anna has made the difficult decision to move into a residential care facility. Though she's mostly surrounded by senior citizens, there's one other self-described "young person, old mind": Luke, who suffers from frontotemporal dementia. The two immediately bond over their unlikely shared circumstance, and eventually their friendship moves into romance. But as Anna's condition worsens, the question of whether she is capable of relationships, or of falling in love, comes into question, and her family insists that she and Luke be kept apart. The home's new cook, Eve, is charmed by Luke and Anna's tale of star-crossed love, and she vows to help them at any cost but her understanding of the potential dangers is incomplete, and facilitating their romance could put more than just her job in jeopardy. The story's nonlinear structure, designed to mimic Anna's disorientation, cleverly obscures a few reveals that color the reader's perception of the dilemma at hand, and while none of these reveals are particularly surprising, they're no less heartbreaking. A supporting cast of quirky old folks and Eve's precocious daughter add levity to a poignant and nuanced story.
Customer Reviews
Moving and Informative
The Things We Keep is realistic fiction written from the viewpoints of a dementia patient, an employee at the care facility and the employee’s young daughter. Author Sally Hepworth does a beautiful job of showing how dementia affects everyone in the patient’s orbit. The continuing threads are how important love is, in the lives of all the characters-and how much that they ALL learn from each other. Very moving book. I felt like I knew the characters, and I didn’t want the book to end.
The things we keep
Disappointed in the ending of the book.
Moving
A book you don’t want to end. Now I want to read everything she’s written.