Island Girl by Lynda Simmons

There are people who try hard to forget their problems. All Ruby wants to do is remember...

Ruby Donaldson has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease, and she'll be damned if she won't straighten out her troubled family before she no longer knows how.

Ruby spent years fighting to hold on to the home her grandmother built on Ward's Island. The only way she can ensure that her younger, mentally scarred daughter Grace can live there for the rest of her life is to convince her older daughter, Liz, to sober up and come home.

Ruby always thought she'd have a lifetime to make things right, but suddenly time is running out. She has to put her broken family back together quickly while searching for a way to deal with the inevitable- and do it with all the grit, stubbornness, and unstoppable determination that makes Ruby who she is...until she's Ruby no longer. ~~synopsis from Goodreads

My thoughts on Island Girl ~~

First, let me give a big shout out "THANK YOU!!!" to the author, Lynda Simmons and TLC Book Tours for supplying copies of this book for my book group, The Book Bags. We won copies from TLC Book Tours for everyone and read this book for our October discussion. The author was even gracious enough to sign all of our copies! Thank you!!

The Book Bags after a great discussion of Island Girl

I loved, loved, loved this book! The author writes the story from the view point of 3 characters, a mother, who has early onset Alzheimer's, and her 2 daughters. Reading a book with 3 first person character's could be a confusing task but it is not in Island Girl. Each voice is very distinct and the author did a wonderful job with the separate points of view. What an exciting and necessary way to read this story. It was really enlightening to be inside all of their heads and to know where they were coming from and what they were thinking.

After reading this book, I have to say that the synopsis does not do this book justice. There is so much more to this story than what one gets from the short blurb. There are the relationships between Ruby and her daughters, Ruby and Mark, Liz and Grace, Grace and Jocelyn - I could go on and on. There are lots of great characters in this book and it was a pleasure getting to know all of them. 

Island Girl was a huge hit with everyone in the book group. We all loved it! A good point of discussion was about some of the decisions that Ruby made because of her diagnosis.What would we do if we were in the same situation? 

Some of us did have strong feelings towards Ruby because of some of the things she did and said and with the way she treated those she loved. But that is what a great writer can do, isn't it, stir up strong emotions about her characters - both good and bad.

I typically don't re-read books - 'so many books, so little time' - but this is one that I am going to go back to again so I can revisit the island and all the wonderful people on it. What a great story!!

Lynda Simmons' website