Rating: 
Summary: Berg's done better
Review: A quick, easy, mindless read. I enjoyed the protagonist in this novel.A single woman with a career as a home health-care nurse. I found several characters to be simply unbelievable. Such as Dewitt and Chip Reardon, whom Myra loves, dying from a brain tumor. The ending didn't do much for the novel either and at that point I simply didn't care!
Rating:
Summary: had it with quirky
Review: Take a stack of 3 by 5 notecards and jot down the following plot themes: quirky minor characters, dying football hero, middleaged friendless visiting nurse, beautiful highschool cheerleader alone and getting old and cool dog. Shuffle the deck and put them in a book. If the setting was Baltimore, you wouldn't know if it was an Anne Tyler book. I just can't take anymore quirky characters. The dying of cancer theme was okay, the romance, doomed as it was, was okay, and the dog worked. But all those insightful though odd patients of hers, helppppp....Ms. Berg is best when describing the simple life of a woman. This time, she gives us an unlikeable heroine who is somehow beloved by all her patients, who attracts the dying love of a former high school stud and who beats out the homecoming queen in a quest for his affections. The one good part is the final resolution when Myra finds out she's worth loving. But oh dear, it takes so long to get there.
Rating: 
Summary: Some parts cheesy, but it still made me cry at the end...
Review: I have always liked the work of Elizabeth Berg. Like everyone else has said about her, she knows people. She can get inside and make a character so real, that you have to believe it. She was able to do that for me with the character, Myra. Unfortunately, some of the other characters I thought were a little bit weak. I'm very half and half on this book. There were times when i couldn't put it down.. and there were others when i couldn't put it down cause i just wanted to get on with it. I thought that some parts didn't work, like the robber--the (SPOILER---Don't look if you haven't read) the budding romance between Myra and Chip) and some of the DeWitt parts. I did cry though, when Myra was grappling with a decision that she had to make at the end, and I sat back, quiet.. just thinking about it when i was done. As a whole, it didn't totally work for me.. but, its just like the author to leave me with something, little bits and pieces that I loved about her book.
Rating: 
Summary: Poignant
Review: I read this book on recommendation, and I was not disappointed. It is exquisitely written, and the story is poignant and touching. I loved how Berg sprinkled the story with little vignettes from Myra's childhood and life, which either gave us insight into her character or showed us how she became the woman she is. The Myra character that Berg created is wonderful. She is just so....human. Real. Flawed. The other myriad of characters that appear in this book were also very believable. Elizabeth Berg writes beautifully in a way that makes you pause and want to read over the sentence again. She made me think. I just finished the book a few minutes ago, and I appreciate my life and all the goodness in it with new vigor. Most books are about plot, but it takes a truly talented author to write about characters. This book, in my opinion, is written about the characters, and the plot is there to show us the deeper aspects of them. I don't know if I've worded that quite the way I wanted to, because the plot was also amazing, but what I'm trying to say is that this book is character driven. It's really about opening yourself up, and trying to understand what you want in life. Or at least, that's what I gained from it. I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone. It does not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: I cried while reading it
Review: Never read her before. I'm now going to track down previous books.
Rating: 
Summary: Berg failed to work her usual magic
Review: I enjoy the writings of Elizabeth Berg and truly enjoyed her Open House novel but Never Change was a great disappointment for me. The characters and events in this novel were so cliche-ridden and predictable that I couldn't wait to get to the end - just to be finished with it. I expected more from Berg than this. I felt that it read like a paperback romance novel.
Rating:
Summary: Berg Does Not Disappoint
Review: This is my fourth Berg novel and though I don't always find the subject matter the most appealing, her stories are always captivating. Myra is in her 50's and has always been on the "outside" with feelings of insecurity and not being a part of the "popular" crowd. As an adult she is a traveling nurse who has an excellent repoir with her patients and has made a comfortable life for herself-but she is alone. She suddenly finds Chip Reardon as one of her new patients. Chip is the token popular guy from highschool who Myra always had a crush on. Chip has come home to die and Myra is now to be his nurse. Through the novel Myra learns that she has a lot to offer and that she is worthy-something she's never felt before. Yes, it's a tearjerker and one may be turned off when they find it to be another cancer story. However, Berg creates characters that are so likable and flawed, you can't help but be pulled in. Her talents are proven again.
Rating:
Summary: A glimmering addition to Berg's collection of novels.
Review: In "Never Change" Elizabeth Berg writes with beautiful lyricism and deep insight into the human spirit. At age 51, Myra has become set in her wallflower ways, maintaining a careful distance between herself and the home patients she visits as a nurse, allowing only her dog any level of true companionship. When unattainable golden boy from high school returns home with a brain tumor, he, along with a visiting ex-sweetheart, chip away at her wall of reserve. An unforgettable and shining cast of characters.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and Memorable
Review: Myra Lipinski is 51 years-old and life is pretty much passing her by - or she views it as if it is. Never-married, she has left her job as an ICU nurse to become a visiting nurse - something she finds pretty rewarding even though she does get a little annoyed by some of her patients. We all knew someone like Myra in school. The girl who, instead of going to the prom, took tickets at the door. The girl who while she never had many dates, was the one who a lot of the girls came to for advise. She even had one guy come for her advice -- Chip Reardon, the school jock, the golden boy. Myra is stunned when she gets a referral to care for a man who has an incurable brain tumor and has returned to his hometown and the home of his parents to die -- the referral is for Chip Reardon, the golden boy. The boy she always saw in her dreams. Chip, who has also never married, is very glad to see Myra and though he has had surgery, he has decided against chemotherapy or radiation, and just wishes to die with dignity. He is doing pretty well when the first meet, but it isn't too long before little things happen -- a shuffled gait, tiring easily, word finding problems, that tells Myra he doesn't have much time left. Chip and Myra become very good friends but soon a woman from his past (the girl he had gone steady with in high school -- the beauty queen -- now a successful attorney)soon arrives, rocking Myra's world -- or the world she had dreamed of with Chip. The book is liberally seasoned with many wonderful secondary characters -- patients of Myra's who eventually show Myra how much she is loved -- with some help from Chip. Berg is a true artist with her words and the emotions she's able to evoke from the reader. I felt it was nothing short of brilliant. I'd been burned by Berg's last two, one because I thought the heroine was TSTL (too stupid to live – UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG), and the next because it was written in present tense - something I've never been able to read. I had read some wonderful reviews of NEVER CHANGE but since I'd had some bad experiences with her (after loving TALK BEFORE SLEEP and RANGE OF MOTION) I decided that I'd wait for the paperback (it was [price] for a 214 page book!) -- well, then Pocket sent me an ARC. I started reading it and she just completely sucked me into the story -- and then I find most of it's in present tense! But you know, after awhile I didn't even notice! This isn't an easy book to read. Myra and Chip become so real that you feel so deeply for both of them. And, the reader even grows to like Diann, the woman from Chip's past (as does Myra much to her chagrin). This story is very moving, but not for the faint of heart, as readers will need many tissues to get through it. Those who stick with it, will be richly rewarded as, in a way, there is a happy ending for both Myra and Chip -- not that there are any miracles here. Or, perhaps, in a way, there are. Buy this one in hardback – you’ll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: Never Better
Review: Elizabeth Berg continues to touch the heart in her newest novel, NEVER CHANGE. The complexity of the story is told with simplicity making it all the more touching and real. Myra has lived her life failing to recognize the amount of love she has spread to others through her nursing duties. When she and Chip are "reunited" after he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she allows herself to feel a love that had been kept on a shelf for decades. This is a complex story because of the walls Myra has built around her heart all of her life. As Chip loses strength and moves towards his own passing, he leaves Myra with a gift by breaking down these walls, appropriately enough, "chipping" away at the veneer of her lonely life to allow her to see herself and, better yet, feel the love that has been there all along. I loved the other patients, especially DeWitt and Grace and Mrs. Fisher. And I loved what Chip does for Myra when they go to Boston. I don't want to spoil that for you. I'll just say it was a truly inspirational moment in the book for anyone who fails to realize how many lives you touch. Elizabeth Berg has taken death, a melancholy subject, and brought new depth to it. Thank you, Ms. Berg, for another amazing story and for bringing Myra and her friends into our lives.
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