Helpful Score: 6
This style of this book sometimes takes sidetrips that take you a moment to switch gears, but once you get into the book, you will know it is worth the effort at the beginning. A beautiful story of love, hope, life, and dying. If you have read any of Charles Martin's books, you know that you will be treated to wonderfully lush descriptions of places, people, and feelings.
Helpful Score: 3
This is a wonderful love story. There is a sticker on the front, "warning: this book may break your heart." So, you know from the start it is going to be sad. However, the story is so full of love and beauty that it offsets the sad parts. The characters are well developed and the story line held my interest from start to finish. You will learn a few things about Charleston, the St. Marys River, famous artists and their paintings, and most importantly the struggles and challenges of dealing with cancer.
I enjoyed this story thoroughly and highly recommend this as a good read.
I enjoyed this story thoroughly and highly recommend this as a good read.
Helpful Score: 3
This is as much a story of a great, though seemingly improbable love, as it is the tale of a couple's final canoe trip down a fabled Southern river, the St. Mary's. The author intertwines the two, telling us about this fictional couple and their great love, and their effort to do all of the things on her "bucket list," as it were, during their shared final voyage. Theirs is an enduring love, one that endures both family pressure and personal agony, to the very end of their trip together. The book also offers glimpses into the life of the South, as seen through the eyes of this traveler while on the trip, and through what she shows him as she opens her world to him. And it speaks of the heart and mind of the artist he is and will become. Be prepared, however: this book offers a lot of detailed description of the river and its life, its history and how navigating this waterway is not simple and certainly never easy. Still, reading this book is well worth the trip. You will be changed by the voyage.
Helpful Score: 3
When Doss, a struggling artist, rescues Abbie from a would be rapist, he has no idea how his life will change because of it. Although Abbies father, the past govenor and present senator from Charleston does everything he can to discourage Abbie from becoming involved with Doss, they fall in love and marry. After many years of a wonderfully happy marriage, Doss discovers a lump in Abbie's breast and life crashes from there. Abbie's last wish is to take a trip down the river in a canoe and to check off 10 items from a wish list she has made. Doss does everything he can to make her wishes come true. The characters are well developed and the story is one that I'll definitely remember and recommend to others.
Helpful Score: 3
This book is masterpiece. It is well written. The author uses such detail to describe the wife's health and the people they meet along the river. It is a type of book, that when you finish, you wish that it would go on forever. I highly recommend this book for any one that wants to curl up and read on a cozy winter day.
