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Summary: Change is a Good Thing!
Review: I love Berg, because she can take a bore like Myra Lipinsky and make her interesting. She can take a homely, unpopular, loner and create a world where she can become beautiful.Myra is a 51 year old nurse who lives with her dog. She seems satisfyed to stay that way until one of her "home visits" happens to be the gorgeous, popular, sensational football player of her old high school, Chip, who by the way, never noticed that she existed, (since she was dim and unpopular)
Until now.... This book is about two people who would have never met under normal circumstances. A loney,solitary woman. A man with a deadly brain tumor. But Berg allows love to enter in, hope, dreams. And we all adore when the ugly duckling is beautiful in the eyes of the quarterback! Myra needs Chip as much as he needs her. And even if time is limited, they take the hours they are given.
Only if we could all live like that!
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Summary: I'm singing Elizabeth Berg's praises!
Review: The reason I love Elizabeth Berg is because she has that unique talent for taking a plot that sounds cliché, and pulling the truth out of it, line by line, till my preconceived notions are completely shattered. In 'Never Change' we meet Myra Lipinski, who seems to have finally resigned herself to a life alone, finding comfort in its advantages and resignation in its shortcomings. She was the girl who sat in the hall selling prom tickets, who held secret admiration for Chip Reardon, popular football player and steady boyfriend to equally-popular Diann. Years slide by and Myra is settled into her career as a home-care nurse when Chip appears again... this time as a brain tumor patient who is spending his dying days with dignity instead of pursuing aggressive treatment. This could read like a soap opera, especially when Diann comes back to help care for Chip and they all end up living together in Myra's two-bedroom home. But Berg is more intelligent than that. She digs in deep and finds what it is about people that bring and keep them together. Every character is challenged, every topic gently peeled and exposed and consumed. It's beautiful and real and anything but ordinary.
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Summary: Beyond the High School Yearbook
Review: This is an engaging, touching and lovingly-written novel that draws us into a circle of real people facing real (and in some cases, devastating) problems. As a baby boomer, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and could relate many of the characters to people I knew in high school. I'm also an author, of NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL, and I appreciate good writing. This is one high school "reunion" you shouldn't miss.
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Summary: The classic yearbook phrase ¿ never change
Review: Myra is 51 years old has never married and never been in love. Unless being in love with nursing counts. Myra is incredibly at what she does, after years of working in hospitals and ER's, she is now a private nurse. She loves and cares about her patients giving them the best care possible. Her new patient is Chip, however Chip is just not an ordinary patient. Not only is he terminally ill but also he was Myra's high school crush. Chip was her dreamboat whereas Myra was always the girl that sold the tickets to the prom but never attended. Together, Chip and Myra learn the meaning of love and what 'Never Change' really means. This is another novel excellent novel by Elizabeth Berg, full of emotion and heartache. Don't think it is possible for Berg to write a bad book.
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Summary: A Half-Full Glass
Review: Myra Lipinski was a largely unloved child of immigrant parents, whose only comfort or solace growing up was her inner self. An unattractive teenager, she had no dates, few friends, and could only stand on the sidelines, watching life go by--and nurturing a secret and intense crush on the school's most popular boy--dashing, handsome, all-around perfect Chip Reardon. As this book begins, Myra is in her early fifties, a highly competent and successful nurse who has retired from Intensive Care nursing to the quieter and more manageable job of traveling nurse. Working through an agency, she comes across a wide variety of people and circumstances, from an impossibly endearing (believe it or not) drug dealer to a teenaged mother desperate to keep her newborn son. Myra loves all of her patients, and they her--but at her core, she is the same lonely onlooker she was as a teenager. And then, after all these years, Chip Reardon comes back into her life (not that he was ever really in it)--dying of an incurable and particularly vicious brain tumor. Myra is placed as Chip's traveling nurse by her agency, and after one look at the adult and still-handsome dying man, Myra falls deeply and painfully in love. But is she really in love with the man who is now, after decades of loneliness, part of her most private life? Or is she really in love with all the possibiities that never came true? It becomes more and more clear, as we see Myra through her own eyes, and those of Chip, his friends and family, and Myra's other patients, that Myra's glass is "half-full," an analogy Chip uses to good effect in one earnest conversation with her. Aside from her beloved dog, Myra has never given her heart--in real life--to a single soul, and yet she is deeply beloved by just about everyone. Except herself. As Chip struggles with his last months of life, he tries to make Myra see the life she can have...as his is waning, he tries to give her the power to truly live. But it's an uphill and seemingly impossible task to break through Myra's armor--even for the man she loves so much. A deeply sad but inspiring book, "Never Change" is not something to read in a depressed state of mind. It is truly a joyous affirmation of life, but packaged in a well of sadness. The readers has to come to see the message just as Myra must do. Well worth reading.
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Summary: Great Book!! You won't be able to stop reading it!!
Review: This was a wonderful book! I am a new fan of Elizabeth Berg and have read five of her books now. This is one of the best ones. You really FEEL for all of the "people" in this book. The reason I only have it four stars, is that it wrapped up a little to fast in the end. I would have liked for another few chapters. I feel like I was left out of something that could have been great to see.
Buy it!
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Summary: Perfect!
Review: I get goosebumps just thinking about this book. First, I should say that I'm a great fan of Elizabeth Berg, but this, to me, is her best book by miles. What a great gift to be able to make a story about death so uplifting for the reader. Ms Berg's other great gift is her ability with dialogue. From old, crotchety couples, to drug dealers, there is never a moment where their voices are anything but totally real. I have lent this book to several friends, and they unanimously enjoyed it as much as I did. It's absolutely wonderful.
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Summary: easy to read but disappointing
Review: After reading Open House, I quickly picked up Never Change as I liked Berg's easy to read style. However, I must say that I found the characters in this book unbelievable, maybe because the book was relatively short. Character development could have been better.
I didn't like that it dealt with euthanasia with Chip taking his own life and the end was somewhat disappointing if not predictable.
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Summary: Charming - reminds me of Ann Tyler's "Patchwork Planet"
Review: Very charming in its simplicity of style, its minimalism, its amusing array of characters. It reminded me of Ann Tyler's "Patchwork Planet," in which sweet, selfless characters do chores for elderly people and like them desite their complaints and annoying ways. Also, I thought the nurse was a believable, lonely woman who had never been fulfilled romantically, but who had accepted her lot in life and, finally, having done so, finds herself meeting the man of her dreams - literally - the most popular boy in her high school on whom she once had a huge crush. The book has a poetic momentum, and the author has a loose, easy style that makes it easy to take...even though it is about terminal illness.
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Summary: Characters that are so easy to really know!
Review: Oh, what a wonderful book!
This is not a depressing story about terminal illness.
This is a book about friendship and caring, old high school crushes and teenage insecurities, and is a lot like attending a 20 year class reunion.
Myra is a home visiting nurse that actually cares about her clients. She feels a responsibility to help them make good choices concerning their health and their lives.
Chip, an old high school football star, is assigned to Myra when he is diagnosed with a termial brain tumor. Myra's secret teenage "yearning" stirs again. Her insecure, serving personality is back and she's back to guarding her heart. Chip's high school girlfriend hears of Chip's illness and comes back to the home town to be with him too. Female rivalry is back.
Berg's excellent writing brings all of these characters off of the pages and makes them very real, just like 2 of the other books I've read of hers; OPEN HOUSE and DURABLE GOODS.
Do you remember signing year books in high school? Do you remember writing "Never Change"? This story is a classic that any high school graduate could relate too.
This is an excellent book. Do yourself a favor and read this story. You will agree.....It's like a class reunion with surprising endings!
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