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    Love Anthony
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    Love Anthony
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    Love Anthony
    Ebook342 pages5 hours

    Love Anthony

    By Lisa Genova

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    'Remember how you couldn't put down Still Alice? Well, clear your schedule-because you're going to feel the same way' Jodi Picoult
    From the bestselling author of Still Alice and Every Note Played comes a heartfelt novel about friendship and a mother coping with the loss of her autistic son.

    Olivia Donatelli's dream of a 'normal' life was shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. He didn't speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realise that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony died. Now she's alone in a cottage on Nantucket, separated from her husband, desperate to understand the meaning of her son's short life, when a chance encounter with another woman facing her own loss brings Anthony alive again for Olivia in a most unexpected way. In a piercing story about motherhood, love and female friendship, Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change who discover the small but exuberant voice that helps them both find the answers they need.

    Fans of The Reason I Jump and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time will love Lisa Genova's story: always authentic and utterly moving.

     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateSep 27, 2012
    ISBN9781471113284
    Author

    Lisa Genova

    Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens, and Remember. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN, and NPR. Her TED talk, What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's, has been viewed over 2 million times.  

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    Reviews for Love Anthony

    4/5

    294 ratings47 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I listened to the audio book and even though it was fun having Debra Messing read the story, I could not get into this book until disc 4 (out of 8). Yes, I almost stopped after the first 3 CDs but the reviews were good for this book and I really enjoyed Still Alice and Inside the O'Briens that I wanted to give this a chance. Once it got going, this book was a beautiful story about two women who were experiencing different heartbreaks and struggling with how to move past what had happened. They meet innocently and slowly bond. If you ever have struggled with a heartbreak and struggle, or have had a child with autism, this is worth your while. Give it a chance if you struggle with it at first. I would have given it four stars if it hadn't started so slow.
    • 5/5
      I don't even know what to say about this book except "five stars." I absolutely loved it. The narrators are two women who live on Nantucket; both are struggling in their marriages, trying to find their purpose in life, and they both find it in different ways. Beth is trying to heal after her husband cheated on her, and turns back to her love of writing. Olivia, a former book editor, photographs families on the beach as if trying to replace what she lost when her autistic son died. The two characters meet, but the way their lives intersect is beautiful - they don't become best friends or anything hokey, and it works perfectly. Genova's characters were so real I wanted to go to their houses and talk about every aspect of their lives with them. I wanted to know Olivia's son, I wanted to read Beth's book.
    • 4/5
      I've enjoyed the Lisa Genova books I've read of listened to, but this one started out a little too “women's fiction” for my tastes. However, it didn't take me long to get into this story of love (love, not romance – this isn't a “romance” novel), loss, autism. One of the turns really did stretch credulity a bit for my tastes, but it was still a lovely book and I think fans of Ms Genova will enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      This is a poignant, moving story about a difficult, and misunderstood topic, autism. The author gives the reader an insight into the life of a young autistic boy and the struggles his parents, especially his mother, have to face, and gives Anthony a voice. Beautifully written, I was in tears by the end. I am becoming a big fan of Lisa Genova. She writes about little known medical conditions with sensitivity, knowledge and respect.
    • 3/5
      Two women, both struggling with life changes, are brought together by a chance encounter and they help each other move on. One is the parent of an autistic child that has died and the other is facing the end of her marriage. I thought the voice of the autistic boy was very authentic and the struggles of his parents very real. This author really does her research. If you like this book read her other book Still Alice.
    • 5/5
      Such a heart wrenching read about Anthony a little boy that has Autism, but written with such empathy and warmth.A beautiful story as all that Lisa Genova's are. (less) [edit]1
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed Still Alice, Lisa Genova's novel about a woman facing early onset Alzheimer's. Her next novel, Left Neglected, about a woman suffering from the neurological condition of left neglect was another good read. When I received Love Anthony in the mail as a part of my postal mailbox book club, I was quite pleased to read a third novel of hers, this one centered on non-verbal autism. There's so little we actually know for sure about how our wonderful, amazing brains work that Genova's insights into specific functioning and the people living with the conditions or results is interesting indeed. But unlike her previous two novels, this one didn't work as well for me at all.Beth is a married mother of three whose world comes crashing down on her when she discovers a note in the mailbox telling her that her husband Jimmy is cheating on her. She kicks him out and has to start the process of healing and of adjusting to life as a single mom. Her questions about how they got to where they did and her grief and despair are palpable in her story. Slowly she discovers that she must find the self she hid away long ago before she can consider what the future might hold. One of the things that she allowed to fall by the wayside in her marriage and motherhood is her love of writing, something she determines to reclaim even as she continues going about her daily life as a year rounder on the island of Nantucket.Olivia has just separated from her husband and moved to Nantucket to the vacation home they once shared. She is not only mourning the loss of her marriage but she is still deeply frozen in grief over the death of her non-verbal autistic eight year old son. Anthony suffered a subdural hematoma after falling during a seizure and his loss has left her with so many questions, foremost among them whether he knew she loved him if he himself didn't have words and what the meaning of his short life was. The extreme isolation of Nantucket in the winter turns out to be a perfect place for Olivia to escape from the sorrow of Anthony's loss and the sadness that caring for him exhausted she and David so much that they couldn't find their way back together in the shared wake of his death.While these two story lines do eventually come together, getting there took altogether too much time. Initially the parallel seems to be the women's disintegrating marriages but there's really no similarity to them at all. Of course, there's also the prologue where Beth adds a round white rock to Anthony's line of white rocks on the beach years prior, meant to convey Beth's sympathy for this unknown and clearly unusual child and perhaps lays the groundwork for a later fantastical occurrence. The narrative jumps back and forth between Beth and Olivia, with Olivia's portions also containing reminiscences of life with Anthony. Beth's portions come to include pieces of the novel she starts to write, a novel from the perspective of an autistic boy. Neither Beth nor Olivia was really all that well fleshed out as characters and the jumps in time in the narrative compressed feelings, moving Olivia and Beth along their own timelines without giving any sense of the hard work they had to be doing. Olivia's sense of alienation and her sorrow over the end of her marriage is more examined than Beth's feelings about her marriage, perhaps because David is rarely present in the narrative while Jimmy, still living and working on Nantucket, is. And if Genova hadn't gone farther, it would have been an okay but not great book centered more on marriages and how they fall apart than on autism. Instead, she uses Beth's book to turn the focus entirely. Beth writing about a child with autism without any direct experience of such didn't bother me at all. That she could so easily capture such a child without any research at all did. And the twist offered to explain this was a bridge too far.The parallels between the boy in Beth's book and Olivia's Anthony started small enough but soon ballooned into absurdity. That Beth was in actual fact channeling Anthony rather than writing a book of her own cheapened Beth's effort to re-connect with writing and with her former interests. In fact, it is clearly Anthony's book, not Beth's. Can she really be said to have started writing again if it is all because she is his conduit? I can certainly buy the idea that Anthony had an active internal voice and unexpressed (because of his non-verbalness) reasons for his outward actions but the passages in his voice felt contrived and inauthentic, reading more as if this is what the author hopes is true than as a true possibility. As if this isn't bad enough, the excerpted parts of Anthony's story are actually rather dull after a while and unlikely to be the kernel of a viable novel. The ending of the larger novel was a let down as well. Beth's sense that the words "you don't have the right ending yet" referred to more than just the novel was a trite about-face after all her measured thinking and hard fought conclusion about her marriage to Jimmy. Maybe getting back together with him was the "right ending" but it was too easy and too unexplained after all that went before it. Olivia's ending was equally easy and unearned. As for Anthony's final letter presented in the epilogue, call me heartless, but I felt manipulated rather than satisfied but maybe this was residual annoyance with what had gone beforeObviously this had major problems for me and I'm sorry for that because I wanted to be amazed. Maybe the problem was that Genova had to channel her most interesting character (Anthony) and his thoughts through another character rather than him telling his own story, all of his own story, through his perspective. Having Anthony dead for the entire narrative made it more obvious the toll it can take caring for a child like him, who needs so much that giving to a spouse and even keeping a sense of yourself, is wildly difficult, but it also meant far less of him, his thinking, and the daily life he led in a world not designed for him. The subject of autism is a fascinating one and I wish this had delivered on it so much more than I felt it did. On the other hand, there are many rave reviews of the book so you might want to discount my opinion entirely!
    • 5/5
      Again Lisa Genova has provided a captivating read! The story of two women living on the island of Nantucket, whose lives intersect in the most unusual way. Both grieving for something they have lost and looking for answers to where they should go to move forward with their lives. I recommend reading this book.
    • 3/5
      Not nearly as wrenching as Still Alice, but a good book. Follows a year in the life of two women, one who deals with a broken marriage, one who deals with a son's death, both dealing with personal identity. A bit of a beach read -- especially because the beach is so often referenced in the story! -- but serious enough not to be flippant or ridiculous.

      Debra Messing's read is good, but she has a tendency to swallow or get quiet at the end of her sentences/clauses, which means the volume needs to be rather high.
    • 3/5
      I was reallly looking forward to this, having loved Lisa Genova's previous novels, [Still Alice] and [Left Neglected]. In those books, she weaves an interesting story around neuro disorders (Alzheimer's, "Left Neglect"). Here, she weaves a story around autism. But it didn't affect me the same way.In Love, Anthony, two women living on Nantucket Island are facing different crisises. Beth's husband has been cheating, and she is unsure what course to pursue. Olivia is grieving the death of her young autistic son. Their stories are very believable, and I cared about both women. I loved the first 2/3 of this book. But when the stories come together, it is with a huge spiritual coincidence. It's not believable, and that ruined the story for me.Disclosure: I received this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for a unbiased review.
    • 5/5
      I know too many people in the spectrum of autism....yes, I guess everyone is somewhere in there. This was sweetly told about having and losing a child with rather severe autism. The ending really was perfect.
    • 5/5
      What an awesome book with parts read in Anthony’s voice. It really made me think about autism in ways I never had. A very emotional and wonderful book!
    • 5/5
      Love Anthony infuses the depression of loss, abandonment, death, and divorce with the magical voice of an autistic child.With only a borderline stretch, it all feels strangely real.A welcome sequel would bring a happy baby nine months from David and Olivia's last clear night in November.He would hopefully become less of an "I signed the papers" deserter as he evolved into co-parenting ... ?
    • 5/5
      A sad, poignant, uplifting, gripping story of Anthony and the effect he had. Anthony, diagnosed with autism, doesn't speak, or make eye contact, but is and is loved. His death has torn his parents apart. Olivia, struggling with her own issues, finds Anthony's voice and a way to bring healing.Have the tissues ready!
    • 4/5
      Another good book by Lisa Genova. Once you start you'll want to finish it as soon as you can.

      Love Anthony tells the story of Olivia, whose eight-year-old autistic son has passed away. She comes to Nantucket to find some answers to questions that have been nagging at her about Anthony. "Why my son?" "Why my family?"

      It also tells the story of Beth, a stay-at-home mom who is recently separated from her husband after finding out about his cheating. Alone, she rekindles her passion for writing. A passion she can share with Olivia.
    • 5/5
      It took me awhile to see where this book was going, but I loved the way the two women's lives were connected yet separate for most of the story. Each was dealing with her own private grief, but managed to help each other move on when all was said and done. I look forward to reading another of Lisa Genova's books.
    • 5/5
      Some books only stir and tug at a reader’s heart, others, like Love Anthony, leave behind imprints of inspiration.This book focuses on two women in Nantucket, who are distraught and overwhelmed with grief.Beth Ellis is grieving from her husband’s infidelity and Olivia Donatelli from the loss of her son and her marriage. Beth and Olivia will eventually discover that they both hold close to their heart, a common bond. And it is through this tender bond that they will both find, their road to healing.Beth is a writer and is crafting a story about a child with autism. Her inspiration for this story came from a memory of a little boy whose excitement grew every time the ocean water splashed over his row of rocks. Olivia was an editor, or at least she used to work as one, but that was before her life began to unravel. Now, for at least the time being, she was staying in her Nantucket cottage; the one she kept when her marriage ended. It was what she wanted anyway. David could keep the house in Hingham; she didn’t care, it came with too many memories. She needed a rest from them, especially from the memory of that awful day when she lost Anthony. Olivia wasn’t sure just how long she would stay in Nantucket. She knew eventually, she’d have to go back to work, but for the time being, she was going to try her hand at photography. Everyone it seemed wanted a family portrait here in Nantucket, on the beach. In fact, that’s how she met Beth Ellis. Beth hired her for her photography services.Lisa Genova has a talent for hooking the reader from the very beginning and placing them in the midst of all her characters’ lives. I know, I immediately cared for Beth and Olivia, and wanted to know more about them, but it was the little boy Anthony who really captured my heart.The author gives her readers a precious gift, the ability to see the world through an autistic child’s eyes: Anthony’s. No reader will be able to look at an autistic child the same way again because with each child, they’ll see Anthony, the boy they fell in love with and now understand.There is a mystical piece to the story, which may bother some readers. I loved it and felt that it only enhanced Lisa Genova’s story. I work every day with autistic children and found that the way the author decoded the mysteries of Autism for the reader was not only profound, but very accurate.I highly recommend adding this book to your library. If I could give it ten stars I would, it’s that good. Don’t miss it.~5 out of 5 stars~ Review by Peg Glover
    • 5/5
      Best book I read in a long time.
    • 4/5
      This author does a wonderful job of building a story around a different medical condition in each of her books, so that while I am being drawn into the lives of those I am reading about, I am inadvertently being exposed to aspects of that particular condition. This book involves autism, but it is so much more than that. It's a story, ultimately, about finding our true purpose in this world and being able to love with abandon.
    • 3/5
      Though well-written, I didn't find this book quite as engaging as Genova's first book, Still Alice. I do like how she approaches and gets inside disorders that we (the general public) often know little about. Apart from writing a good story, I think Genova, with her background in neuroscience, provides a much-needed service in explaining in understandable language, the difficulties, and experiences of (in this case) autism.
    • 4/5
      This book has so many levels to it. Autism and Anthony's story are the base to a novel about marriages and infidelity and friendship and lonliness. About the lose of a child and the lose of a marriage.It is cleverly wrapped around Beth writing a book that is writing Olivia's story of her autistic son Anthony. The ending she needs to write in the book is the ending of the book. Somehow it all works. Well done.
    • 2/5
      I must say that I kept waiting and waiting for this book to get going. It dragged on and it felt as though no progress was taking place. I did finish it, but I must say that is probably due to the fact that I listened to this in my car, and not a hard copy. Definitely not a fave read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The first book I read by Lisa Genova was Still Alice (which I loved). However this book was much slower going and I was not totally engrossed. Although I understand Autism much better now than I did previously, I think the premise of the writer channeling the dead boy was not developed enough to be believable.
    • 3/5
      Definitely not my favourite book by Lisa Genova. I found the characters, generally, weakly drawn and the premise of the connection between Beth and Anthony and Beth and Olivia largely unconvincing.
    • 4/5
      Dies ist mein drittes Buch von Lisa Genova. Ich suchte gute, mich nicht langweilende Unterhaltung und dies hat mir das Buch geboten. Auch wenn ein Teil der Handlung sich um Autismus dreht, empfinde ich den Inhalt als kitschig und versetzt mit diversen Klischees. Zwei Frauen trauern, die eine, weil ihr Sohn gestorben ist, mit 8 oder vielleicht auch 10 Jahren, ich weiß es nicht genau. Die andere trauert, weil ihr Mann sie betrogen hat und sie sich neu im Leben orientieren muss. Na, und wo trauert es sich am besten? Auf einer schönen Insel, mal malerisch rauh im Winter, mal sonnenverwöhnt im Sommer. 9 to 5 Jobs braucht hier auch keine, die eine hat ein Heer von besten Freundinnen, die andere ist ganz allein. Man feuert den offenen Kamin, macht lange Spaziergänge am Strand. Und doch ist die Geschichte bei weitem nicht so abgeschmackt, wie bei anderen Autorinnen. Im Mittelpunkt steht nicht der Mann, dem man auf der letzten Seite in die Arme sinkt, sondern es werden Frauen geschildert, die ihre Vorstellung eines geglückten Lebens auch außerhalb der traditionellen Frauenrollen sehen. Wer also allergisch auf Frauen, die Männern auf dem weißen Pferd entgegenfiebern, reagiert, aber dennoch leichte Unterhaltung sucht, ist hier richtig.
    • 5/5
      This book was Amazing!! My first book by Lisa Genova, and will be reading the other two as soon as possible! I loved the author’s usage of words to describe each scene in detail, which puts you in the setting as if you were experiencing its first hand-- from the items in a room, the senses, feelings, touch – making it so real and powerful!

      This was a poignant, powerful, and heartfelt story of two women--their paths crossing at a time with strength from each other without knowing it. Olivia, mother of an autistic son trying to make peace of her son’s brief life, and Beth a mother of three who has just found out her husband was cheating and how to deal with his unfaithfulness and move on or learn to trust again with unconditional love.

      I loved the setting in Nantucket which is one of my favorites and the fact both women had a creative past and now seeking solitude. Beth a writer and Olivia a photographer and former editor-both having given up their passion and finding it once again through this special little boy which binds the two strangers together for a life lesson. The book club, the girlfriends, the reaching inside the mind and behavior of a child with autism is a lesson for all of us that sometimes it is OK to just “Be” and not doing.

      I loved all parts of the book, the characters, and most of all- the epilogue which was so eloquently written! I look forward to reading more from Lisa Genova as she has just been added to my favorite author list!
    • 4/5
      While this wasn't as good as Still Alice and Left Neglected, I did read this book straight through.
    • 3/5
      I read this for a bookclub and appreciated the author's efforts to bring autism and the challenges if poses within families; however, I did not find the characters to be very well developed. Strangely, the one character I did get a sense of was Anthony, and perhaps that was the author's intent. I felt both the male and female adults in the story were somewhat stereotypical, with little depth. I do plan to read one of Genova's earlier books, Still Life, and will see how that compares. I do admire the author's dogged research into the difficult topics addressed in her novels. My question is how her main character in the novel managed to become so knowledgable about autism without doing years of research...is the reader the accept the channeling of the spirit of one who has passed?
    • 3/5
      Two women meet by accident on a Nantucket beach and are drawn into a friendship. Olivia is a young mother whose eight-year-old severely autistic son has recently died. She comes to the island in a trial separation to try and make sense of the tragedy of her Anthony's short life. Beth, a stay-at-home mother of three, is also recently separated after discovering her husband's long-term infidelity. Summary BPLIn her acknowledgments Ms Genova writes that she spent two years researching autism: the condition,its impact on families, spousal and filial relationships. But she adds that when you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism. In other words, no stereotyping.I think the author was most successful when writing about Anthony's parents, the day to day travail of caring for and providing services for a child with autism; the harrowing pain of letting go--expectations, plans and dreams. The chapters in Anthony's voice seemed to me, at best, wishful thinking.The Barney touch will have many readers smiling in understanding.7 out of 10 For readers who enjoy reading psychological fiction, with an interest in autism.
    • 3/5
      There is a spoiler tag in here but due to GR unreliable system, I've decided to hide the entire review so that it doesn't get accidentally ruined for anyone who might be planning to read it.

      Likes:

      Note: I'll be editing this in later today when the book is at hand. There were a few really great passages in this one!

      Dislikes:

      Beth reading 2 books on autism and suddenly being able to write about it adeptly and it mirroring Olivia's journal entries about Anthony IDENTICALLY. Pringles, Barney, swings, playgrounds, routes home, rock lines, etc. There wasn't even an attempt to make them relatable variations of each other, it is more like a clairvoyant writing. (ETA: Even down to the exact name chosen at "random" by Beth! Give me a break. The ending was really weak, in my opinion and I was disappointed to see Beth get back together with husband. Olivia makes pseudo-progress in her life and the plot doesn't develop well, especially not in comparison with her other novels.

      It bugged me, just a little bit, how Olivia was able to become a "professional portrait photographer" without any struggle at all and without any experience or knowledge of it. She even remarks just how simple it was and how she undercut every other business by 200$ a sitting. Being that I've worked in professional photography, both portrait studio and commercial NBA/MLB sports, I know how difficult it is in reality and it comes as a bit of a slap in the face the way Genova writes it.

      It pains me to say that this has been my least favorite Genova book so far. Her knowledge and ability to spin human stories is quite good but this book just went a bit eye-rolly for me.