This book is utterly charming! I don’t know how the author manages to make a crusty, unfriendly old woman and a force-of-nature 10-year-old into such appealing people! They could so easily have come across as unlikeable or bratty… but they don’t.
Eudora is an 85-year-old English woman who is done with life. She has no relations and wants, very badly, to end her life on her own terms. She seeks out a clinic in Switzerland that has a program of assisted suicide to which she can apply. Meanwhile, her next door neighbor has moved out and sold the house to a young family. Ten-year-old Rose enters Eudora’s life and manages not only to be a friend to Eudora, but to think of Eudora as her own best friend.
The book is, as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, simply charming. We see Rose and Eudora developing this most unlikely friendship in spite of Rose’s flamboyance which contradicts all of Eudora’s deeply held beliefs about proper attire and behavior. And in spite of Eudora’s persnickety reprovals of Rose’s ways. There are laugh-out-loud passages and others that just make you smile.
If you’ve ever owned a cat, you might particularly enjoy Montgomery, Eudora’s cat. When we first meet Montgomery, he is barely tolerant of Eudora, although she is the one who feeds and cares for him. This passage tells you all you need to know about their relationship at the beginning of the book:
“The cat plants himself with defiance across the top step. ’If you trip me up, there’ll be no one to feed you,’ she tells him. He stares up at her with momentary distaste, but seems to take the point, slinking down the stairs with practiced arrogance.”
But there is so much more to this book. In a series of short flashbacks woven throughout the basic story, we begin to understand why Eudora is the way she is, why she has no family, why some of Rose’s antics rub her decidedly the wrong way, why she’s so determined to end her life before her body deteriorates further.
Ultimately, this is a book about death and about what makes a good death. And it’s about true friendship that transcends differences of age, of point-of-view, of time and place. It’s a great read!
–Jeanie Smith
Books, Brews & Banter 