Rating: 
Summary: Resounding ........... loudly!
Review: This book is about the evolution of a relationship, the relationship between the Gulden women Ellen and Kate. Ellen has sought her whole life to command the respect of her father on purely intellectual merit. She does it because she sees her hero father disregard her mother. Indeed, Kate's character, examined solely from the intellectual standpoint, is weak and pathetic. She effectively lays down and dies the day she marries him. She gives him no reason to respect her mind, her intellect. She makes babies, cookies and a beautiful home. She is the window dressing on his life. Ellen strives to be the antithesis of her mother. As an adult, she is exactly what her mother is not. She grows up to be just like dad - self-absorbed, dismissive of her 'intellectual inferiors' of whom her mother is one. This, then, is the least attractive aspect of the relationship between mother and daughter.But, in the words of reviewer McGinnis, "As the novel progresses, Ellen realizes that there's a lot more to her mom and less to her dad than she had previously thought." We have here a thorough study of an adult relationship. Ellen thinks, like her father, that her mother is ........ wait, does she think of her mother at all? It is the exploration of the depths of her mother's personality, her spirit, that then leads Ellen to the realization that her mother is a complex, comprehensively beautiful woman, the woman who gives Ellen a license to break with her father's expectations, to become her own person, to acknowledge and appreciate the heart-mind continuum. What an amazing gift! And what a journey for us, the readers! We start with one of 'the less attractive aspects of the relationship at the core of this book' and end with Ellen's realization that 'there's a lot more to her mom than she had previously thought', her one true thing. This is a good trip, a thorough exploration of complex relationships. This is what gives the book its resonance, the resonance that will inspire me to read this book again, just as it did Ms. McGinnis, the resonance to give this book to my siblings and to my friends who have not been so fortunate as to have wonderful mothers like mine, that of Ellen Gulden and Joyce McGinnis.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC!
Review: I felt that this book was well written, with a lot of passion and emotion. It was a true depiction of mother-daughter relationships. If you like the writer, you will truely love this book! You will NOT be dissapointed! I could not put the book down for a minute! This was the second book of Anna Quindlen that I have read in three weeks, and I bought another book of hers today!
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging Inner Thoughts
Review: Features a very engaging and insightful insight into the inner thoughts and experiences of the main character (Ellen) as she nurses her dying mother. Anna Quindlen makes these seem very real and believeable. The family dynamic portrayal is also interesting. A very satisfying read. Some of the supporting characters (such as the nurse) are a bit one-dimensional. Quite different from the film in detail, emphasis and point-of-view.
Rating:
Summary: very good, but also very intense
Review: this is not a book for the faint of heart: there are plenty of graphic descriptions about the effects of cancer on the human body. ellen's narration is gritty and direct. she describes her own flaws and relates anecdotes that reveal her shortcomings, which are juxtaposed with the mother's incredibly down-to-earth, caring and gentle qualities. the mother is still believable as a character because she, too, has moments of sarcasm and anger, but overall she is an inspiring figure. this is an excellent, absorbing book that will bring you to tears.
Rating:
Summary: The architecture of intimacies
Review: This book was very well written. It explores many complex relationships - those between siblings, between lovers, between friends, between physicians and their patients, .... The central relationship is, of course, between Ellen Gulden and her mother Kate. Quindlen draws the reader into studying his/her own relationship with the mother. This book was a great journey. It kept getting better - all the way to the end.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Caregiver Stories I've Read
Review: This is a work of fiction, but it is one of the best caregiver stories I have ever read. The thing I like about this book was the development of the daughter into the role of her mother's caregiver. It needs to be said that we are all reluctant caregivers. There isn't one of us who looks forward to making major changes in our lives to accommodate a chronically ill or dying person regardless of our connection with them, regardless of the disease process we face. The majority of us, even when we have a deep and abiding connection with our person faces feelings that can only be described as dread. For most of us, the relationships we have are fraught with difficulties: old patterns of behavior, unresolved conflicts, little injuries, big injuries and complicating all of it are the relationships with the 'other'family members. The one who steps up to take on the role of caregiver is often the one thrust into that role, as is the 'daughter' in this book. But, for so many of us, this daughter included, we somehow manage to take on the tasks, we manage to find a level of peace in those tasks, and more often than not, we find a new relationship with our person that softens the old memories and patterns and hurts. So many of us discover it is possible to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. I work with Caregivers facing Alzheimer's and having been a caregiver myself, a story I relate in my book, "he used to be Somebody, A Journey into Alzheiemr's Through the Eyes of a Caregiver, I know something about this process of changing roles. I know a great deal about finding a new love and relationship as a disease process takes over a life. "One True Thing," is a caregiver story that pulls no punches and yet it is a true picture of what we caregivers face including those of us caring for someone who is less and less able to participate in their worlds, such as those with Alzheimer's I recommend this book to Alzheimer families everywhere as an exmple of successful caregiving.
Rating:
Summary: a book that keeps on giving
Review: I read "One True Thing" several years ago, before the movie came out, and still am impressed with the richness of it. It is a beautiful, deep story that keeps giving till the very end. The events regarding the mother's illness and the mercy killing charges are mere backdrops enabling the main character to fully learn just who her mother was. This is a story of discovery, which culminates at the end with the greatest discovery of all. It is beautifully written. I was, and still am, greatly touched by it. It is remarkable book dealing with the subtle yet astounding realization that people are not always who we perceive them to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply felt, but not so true
Review: I read this book when it came out, and I picked it up again recently. My mother has cancer, and she has moved in with my husband and me. I thought the book might comfort me and help me gain some perspective at this difficult time. I was wrong. Ms. Quindlen doesn't attempt to write about things she doesn't understand, but she understands so little of the mother/daughter relationship that the book is rather empty. The mother, Kate, is so wonderful, so nurturing, so accepting. She spent her life creating a beautiful home and loving her family. She bears her illness with grace and courage. The daughter, Ellen, has only to watch, learn, and forgive. With Kate for a teacher, she could hardly do otherwise. Ellen is not jealous or resentful of her mother. She is merely dismissive of the way her mother chose to live. As the novel progresses, Ellen realizes that there's a lot more to her mom and less to her dad than she had previously thought. Welcome to adulthood, Ellen. 'One True Thing' wraps an inherently messy experience up in a very neat package. The novel rings true only to those of us fortunate enough to have wonderful mothers, only to those of us whose lives have never been touched by terminal illness. At its core, it is Anna Quindlen's elegy for her mother and her childhood: touching and personal, deeply felt, but without the resonance that would have come had she explored the less attractive aspects of the relationship at its core.
Rating:
Summary: Truth or Dare
Review: Beware, gentle reader! Do not buy this book! If someone gives you a copy, do not open it. For if you do, the tendrils of human passion in Anna Quidlen's poignant narrative will reach up to you from its pages, seize you by the throat, and not let go until long after you have gasped through to the last page. You have been warned!
Rating:
Summary: Curl up and...
Review: One True Thing is a perfect book for a quiet day, a jumble of quilts and a fire. Quindlen's prose is melodious and its lyricism belies her stark observations about how we understand and are understood by those we love. I was suprised at the adept adaptation of his novel for the screen. The film managed to capture some of the book's most arresting moments while adding important scenes perfectly in keeping with Quindlen's style and intention. Some readers have complained that the men in the book are weak. That's true. They are weak, selfish, self-centered, lacking in compassion and empathy when those qualities are needed most. This is the experience of many, many women who trudge on alone, particularly in times of crisis and great emotional pain in their lives and those of their families. We have all certainly seen ordinary women die alone with great courage or use their strength and compassion to guide others toward a dignified death while the men in their lives slink into a corner, too upset to cope. Men are generally forgiven this peculiar flaw, requiring even more women to step in and take their place. It is the lack of complaint by women that renders male behavior in this regard utterly invisible. Ellen's dying mother, an icon of self-sacrifice, has helped to perpetuate this behavior in her husband by labeling it a weakness of character. Ellen herself will have none of his excuses, knowing that love involves the will as well as the heart, and so is powerfully reprimanded by her mother. And hey -- where are her brothers while she struggles on alone as daddy keeps his extreme distance? Nobody even gives her a week off! That isn't to say that all guys are wimpy poops like George Gulden or creeps like Ellen's pretty-boy beau or that all women are Mother Theresa (thank god, or the dead would be dead even faster) But if most man were as compassionate and emotionally generous as say, Pierce Brosnan (yeah, ladies, he's not just hot), One True Thing would ring shrill as a cheap phone. It does not. I recommend the book for Quindlen's beautiful prose, her confrontation of our worst fears and for her story-telling style. The judicial aspects of the book's (but not the film's) ending were attenuated, distracting and more unlikely than not, but One True Thing is a keeper, a loaner and a book I will long remember.
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