Inside the O'Briens

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

Oh, how I fell in love with the O'Brien family! These characters are beautifully human, imperfections and all. I felt as though I was sitting around the table with them during their Sunday family dinners loving every story, playful joke, and inappropriate comment. The O'Briens, albeit Irish in both their traditions and their surname, are a true American family.

Joe, the patriarch of the family, discovers that he has Huntington's Disease, a horrible, progressive and degenerative disease--much like ALS--that delivers an early death sentence to the person diagnosed. Unlike ALS, Huntington's is genetic, and what readers find out through the story is that because Joe is gene positive for the disease, each of his four children carry a 50/50 chance of also being gene positive, and so on and so forth for their future children as well.

So begins a painful and frightening journey for this beautiful family as they struggle not only with Joe's recent diagnosis but also with the possibility that 4 other members of the family could also be carrying this horrible gene. It comes to light that the O'Brien kids are able to receive genetic testing to find out whether or not they are gene positive giving them some insight into their own futures and also providing them with pertinent information for making future decisions, such as whether or not to have their own children, and the struggle of Huntington's continues as they each try to decide whether or not to be tested.

Throw in the fact that JJ, the O'Brien's oldest son has just found out that his wife is pregnant and readers must stretch their heartache for this family even further.

There are so many worries and frustrations inside of this beautiful family, all of which rest incredibly heavy on the shoulders of Joe, who is not only dealing with the development of physical and emotional symptoms of Huntington's but also that he has possibly passed this disease onto his children and grandchildren--not to mention that he will be widowing his wife much earlier than any of them ever expected.

The way this family deals with this incredibly heart-wrenching and unfair diagnosis is real and raw. Most importantly, in the end, despite all of the fears that still loom in the backs of their minds, they continue to love and lean on one another. As long as they have each other, they have everything.

I loved that this book was slightly different from Genova's most recent release about a man who is diagnosed with ALS and how it progresses in him all the way up to his death. This book, while offering a lot of information about Huntington's Disease focuses more on the family dynamic of the O'Briens. Even though the diagnosis is there and is obviously the entire reason for the story and what the O'Briens are going through, Genova gives readers more of the family dynamic than anything else here.

Once again, Genova has presented an incredible story with fascinating information about a disease that isn't well-known while keeping readers entertained and sympathetic towards a wonderful cast of characters. This is a great read!

A NOTE ON THE AUDIOBOOK: This story is read by Skipp Sudduth. I was first introduced to this actor as Sully, a police officer in the television series Third Watch. I found it appropriate that he was narrating a story where Joe, the main character is a Boston police officer and not only that but there is a Sully's Pub in the story as well! How's that for coincidence. Sudduth did a great job of narrating the story and I'm glad I got to visualize him as the character of Joe in kind of a resurrection of sorts of his previous acting gig as a police officer.