Five Days Left was a great insight into Huntington's disease, a disease I knew little of. It is a gut-wrenching story of Mara, a wife and mother who has given herself five days left to live, due to the onset of this horrific disease.
And it's also the story of Scott, a soon-to-be father who grows to love the young foster boy who has been living with them for a year. A boy who will be going back to live with his mom -in five days.
These two people meet through an online group, and the story makes you care about what happens to both of them, along with their family and those who love them.
There is no happy ending to Huntington's disease, so grab a hanky, you'll need one! ( )

reviewed from uncorrected galley:

adult fiction/tenderheart stories (a la Jodi Picoult). This isn't really my type of book, but I read 100 pages of it and it's not bad--lots of people would probably really like having their heartstrings plucked and so would get a good read out of this. ( )

A good. cry that's for sure, but there is so much more to this book. A mother's strength and a couples decision to rethink what family looks like. Enjoyed the read and can appreciate the struggles all went thru. ( )

Mara is a busy partner in a law firm. She and her husband Tom who is a dermatologist have one adopted daughter. They have a wonderfully busy and happy life until Mara begins to have noticeable problems with memory and emotional swings, and she even begins to lose muscle control. At this point Tom convinces her to seek medical help. At the doctor’s visit they find out that Mara is suffering from a degenerative condition called Huntington's Disease. The prognosis for her future is very discouraging since the disease eventually causes most bodily functions to shut down. Mara doesn't want to live under such physical limitations and does not wish to burden her family with her care so she begins the five-day countdown until her birthday when she plans to end her life.

In opposing chapters, we meet Scott and Laurie who are fostering a boy, Curtis, whose mother is imprisoned for a year after she is sentenced for drug abuse. Scott has become very attached to Curtis and so he begins the five-day countdown until Curtis must leave their home at the end of the year to return to his mother. Scott and Mara both participate anonymously in an Internet family support forum and that is how their stories become connected as they both have five days remaining to spend with loved ones.

There is much to consider long after reading this book about life and death, family and friendship, suicide, fostering children, human dignity, compassion for fellow human beings, and the importance of living each day to its fullest. Five Days Left is a captivating book that successfully pulls together two very different stories of love and letting go.
( )

My book club chose this book for May 2017 and I can see that we will have a lively discussion about it. Other reviews I have read said it would make a good book club read and I think they are right. It is not an easy read though; I had to set the book down a number of times because I was so troubled by the main story. Of course, it wasn't very long until I was back reading it again because it is compelling.

The main story is about Mara, a woman afflicted with Huntington's Disease (HD), who is in her early 40s. She was a high-powered lawyer in a Houston law firm but recently retired because she could no longer manage even a limited work schedule. She has a young daughter, Lakshmi, who was adopted from an Indian orphanage (as Mara had been) and she is married to a dermatologist. She was diagnosed with HD four years previously and she had promised herself then that when she got to the stage of the disease where she could no longer look after herself she would commit suicide. She decided that the act would take place on the birthday after the inevitable occurred. That time has come she figures after she lost bladder control in the grocery store just 5 days before her birthday. The other story is about a school teacher and his wife in Michigan who agreed to act as guardians for a young boy whose mother was incarcerated for a year. Scott had been teacher and basketball coach to the boy's older brother, Bray. Bray was in university and couldn't have his brother live with him. There are only five days left in Scott's guardianship and he is devastated that he has to let the boy (whom he calls Little Man) go. His wife is about 6 months pregnant and is looking forward to having time alone with Scott before the baby arrives. Mara and Scott both belong to an online group about parenting so they are good friends even though they have never met.

The book is divided into five sections, one for each day, and each section has chapters from Mara's and Scott's point of view. This was a clever device for the book. Mara's story is the most emotional and Scott's sections provide a little relief from it. For a first novel it was very well written and I'm sure we will see more from this writer. ( )