Every Note Played - Lisa Genova - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Lisa Genova

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: March 20, 2018.

RATING: 4 stars.

Many of us might have heard of ALS as the disease Stephen Hawking suffered from. Some of the millennials might know ALS because of the (idiotic?) Ice Bucket challenge popular a few years ago. Few of us might also know about ALS because of its alternative name, Lou Gehrig's disease, named after the famous baseball player who first brought international attention to ALS in 1939 after being diagnosed with the debilitating and life-threatening disease at the age of 36. (You can watch the 1942 Gary Cooper starrer "The Pride of the Yankees", which was based on Lou Gehrig's life story.)

But merely hearing about ALS is one thing; living with ALS and caring for an ALS sufferer is totally different. Every Note Played gives you an insight on what ALS entails for the patient and the caregiver.

Richard is an accomplished and acclaimed pianist; he gets diagnosed with ALS when he's at the peak of his career. Initially reluctant to accept his diagnosis, he slowly gets accustomed to the limitations ALS places on his body. Karina, his ex-wife after a bitter divorce, while initially keeping her distance, slowly takes over the role of caregiver to the increasingly weak Richard.

Every Note Played balances the family issues with the medical challenges pretty well. While not an exceptional book on the family issues part of the story (it's pretty typical), it still does an excellent job of giving you a peek into the lives of those suffering from ALS and of those who nurture them through this incurable disease.

There are some things which are very predictable in the book, which I guess made me lower my rating. In addition, certain details feel into the TMI category for me. Though that info might be true for ALS sufferers, I found it very uncomfortable as a reader. Then again, this might be my limitation and not the book's flaw. I don't enjoy retching (who does?), and this book made me do that, first ever time in my life when I have retched during a book. On second thought, yes, this is my weakness, not the book's! (That is what comes of being a very visual reader who wants to "see" in her mind everything she is reading! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️) Let's discount this part of the feedback.

Lisa Genova is brilliant in her similes. The book has many comparisons and every single one of them seems to be apt! What also worked tremendously in favour of the book was that the audio book I heard had spectacular narrators. Dennis Boutsikaris and Dagmara Dominczyk were absolutely pitch perfect in their narrative roles as Richard and Karina. The emotions and the repercussions of the disease on the voice were enacted so beautifully that I felt more like I was hearing a play than just listening to a book. If possible, do try to go for the audio version of this book to make your experience even better.

My rating: 4/5 for the book, which might have been 3.75 if I had read it.