Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Hilarious debut in 'The Fallback Plan'

What happens when you graduate college and your only plan happens to be your fallback plan? This is Eshter Kohler's unenviable situation in the new book The Fallback Plan. She decides to move back in with her parents and take a job babysitting the neighbors' daughter May, but the job proves surprisingly complicated as May's parents pull Eshter in conflicting directions. If you're looking for a hilarious debut novel that examines the challenging time between college commencement and the commencement of real life, check this book out from your Community Library. Got any other pre-life crisis books to suggest? Share your ideas in the comments!

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Hilarious debut in 'The Fallback Plan'

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