Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel | 
30 yo Ruth quits her job, and goes home to help her aging parents who are losing their memory…so human, spliced with humor
#SeniorCitizens
#BookBinge
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
pickI loved this one! I suspected I would, and I totally did. I loved how it chronicled all the little details in a year, the small things in relationships, a family, a day. Overall, the story is about an adult daughter who moves home after a broken engagement to care for her aging father with dementia. It was just my kind of book!
Thanks for the tag @EadieB ! 😊. #WondrousWednesday
1. Excellent question! Maybe Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca? 🤔
2. I can‘t remember the name, but The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell made me sob. 😭
3. Lots of authors are from California, but Kem Nunn and Rachel Khong are from the same corner of Southern California as I am. 🌴
Hoping to finish Love, Life and the list today.
Just started Nantucket Nights with Goodbye, Vitamin up next. 🤓
#WeekendReading
I didn‘t want this book to end.
Favorite quote: “Here I am, in lieu of you, collecting the moments.”
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
About a quarter of the way through. So far, it‘s one of those books that I read and think, “I want to write like this author someday!” I love the dark yet funny writing.
This short novel about a woman who moves back in with her parents as her father faces the onset of Alzheimer‘s is an amazingly delightful hybrid of lighthearted and bittersweet, like a middle grade novel written for adults (💯 my jam!). The MC‘s sweet, humorous first-person POV reads like she never lost her childlike wonder and appreciation for every small thing she observes.🔸#decemberreads2021
pick4🌟 Khong did a great job of capturing what it means to be human in this heartfelt, quirky yet at times hilarious read. From life, loss and love to family and forgiveness, and to growing up in your thirties, adding humour and intimacy along the way! A quick read that even though was a reread I didn't want it to end! #bookreview #bookreviewer #bookblogger #domesticfiction #bookstagram
Ruth‘s father has dementia and she moves back home to help out her parents. I really liked the first half of the book, especially when he is teaching the students in his California History class. The structure of the book and the ways it deals with memory are interesting and clever—there are no chapters, and the sections of the book are of varying length. And I love the title and colorful cover!
Book Five #14Books14Weeks2021
I read this book last year but I am discussing it with a book club tomorrow so I‘m skimming through it again. Makes me remember how much I loved the writing. This is such a great quote.
pickI was originally reluctant to read this as I knew that it dealt with the difficult topic of dementia however I am glad that I picked it up anyway. Khong did a beautiful job chronicling the story of a daughter coming home to help care for her father with empathy and humor.
pickWhat a sweet, sad, simple look at the ways relationships grow and shift with time and circumstance. It reminds me a little of the pandemic, the daily world being made smaller, in a way, extra things necessarily being cut out, allowing what's most important to rise to the surface.
pickOn the heels of a break-up, a woman moves in with her parents to help care for her father who has Alzheimers. The format is like a journal, the MC relating things she notices/remembers on a given day, saving the memories as her father loses his.
This hit close to home, as my father has severe dementia, and I found parallels to my own situation. It's sad but it's also quite a funny book. The balance Khong strikes is impressive and very moving. 5⭐
New year, new challenges. I‘m going to try the #bookspinbingo to help me whittle down my ever expanding TBR pile. This is from my physical book pile-I think I will make one for my ebook pile as well. It will take some of the pressure off of deciding what to read next!
pickWell gosh, I just loved this. A brief story told in snippets that nonetheless worked its way into my heart. Ruth comes home to live with her parents as her father is showing signs of early dementia. Through a series of observations and journal entries, we see how Ruth responds to the evolving relationship with her dad. What a lovely, surprising book.
I really loved this book and the pictures quote struck me and feels very applicable as to not being able to know another‘s experience and recognize our opinion is shaped by who we are. #integrateyourshelf
pickThe main character moves home to help her mom to take care of her dad who has early onset Alzheimer‘s. Throughout the year she copes with a difficult breakup, and learns how to be present with her father. She keeps a sort of journal of moments which form the book. They mimic the journal of moments her father kept about her as a child and these are intermixed in the story. I found it to be very effective - a tender and at times funny read.
“Tonight a man found Dad‘s pants in a tree lit with Christmas lights.”
#firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl
pickI read this for book club in February and didn‘t really have high expectations, and I came away with it being one of my new favorite books of all time. This was a beautiful little book, and I can‘t wait to see what else Rachel Khong comes up with! https://amysbookreviews.com/2020/03/19/goodbye-vitamin-hello-5-stars/
Picked these up from the library today!
I fear the loss of my lucidity: as in dementia or Alzheimer‘s
#bookaboutsomethingyoufear
#auldlangreads
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
@OriginalCyn620
pickAn easy, kind of funny but also sad tale of a daughter coming home to care for her professor-father living with Alzheimer‘s.
“What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers.” This book is strange and funny and insightful and sad and sweet and I‘m glad to be starting 2020 with it.
Thank you @erzascarletbookgasm for this #jolabokaflodswap package! Have a merry Christmas!
@MaleficentBookDragon
pickThis book was comical, yet heartbreaking all at once. I‘ve been wanting to read this row a while, and I‘m so glad I finally did. Beautiful, sad, and funny all at once ❤️
#wintergames #elfies #tbrreads
Oh were you reading that? #catnephew Pistachio not amused by book interfering with ear scritches. #catsoflitsy #kal
Ruth‘s father has Alzheimer‘s disease and, for one year, she heads home to help her mother care for him. As she learns to navigate her new role and changing relationship, her days are filled with both heartbreak and humour. And it pretty much left me a sobbing wreck 😭 #Illremember #movember
Tuesday contemplation of adding on tagged book when December BOTM selections are available.
#ThePowerofGoodbye #MOvember @Cinfhen
DAY 26 #ThePowerofGoodbye | I Loved this quirky little book about a family coming to terms with Alzheimer‘s.
#MOvember
@Cinfhen
so-soThis one was a close call - there were some inspired moments here & there that almost tipped it into ‘pick‘ but not quite.
In the end my feeling is that this book is overworked - as in over workshopped in that prestigious MFA program sort of way. Plus it is sooo overhyped- not the author‘s fault- but I can only role my eyes at the many blurbs declaring it a transcendent work of literary genius. I mean it‘s FINE. Calm down NYT & Vogue.
“I knew it started being over with Joel when I‘d open a bottle of wine and he wouldn‘t drink it. Sharing things is how things got started, and not sharing things is how they end.”
(I‘ll be honest with you guys, this book is not rocking my world, but I will concede that this is is a very good bit right here).
pick30-year-old Ruth discovers it‘s possible to make something sweet when life hands her lemons—dumped by her fiancé and then called to spend a year with her parents to help cope with her father‘s Alzheimer‘s. Surprisingly buoyant, this novel is told in Ruth‘s diary vignettes, tenderly collecting moments—absurd, mundane or sublime—like: “The moon is doing something beautiful.” The fragments add up to something charming, heartfelt and beautiful.
At the library, I run into Regina, who was homecoming queen our junior year. She had hay-coloured hair to her waist and I envied it. She has children now. They share names with hurricanes—I don‘t know if it is intentional or what.
“This is Katrina and this is Sandy,” she introduces. The children are 4 and 8, and even so young, their expressions look overcast.
Later, at the farmers‘ market, I watch a couple bros sample dates.
“Shit,” says one bro, coughing, “I think I‘m allergic to this giant raisin!”
“That‘s not a raisin, Steve,” says another bro. “That‘s a Medjool date.”
Born humans, I remind myself.
I ask if he remembers the time she tried to make Cheetos from scratch. I was 9 or 10 & Cheeto obsessed. She drove us 2+ hours to the Frito-Lay factory in Bakersfield, where we toured the plant in hairnets & shoe covers. At the end of the tour we sampled the freshly manufactured Cheetos, still warm from the industrial process. A few weeks after that trip, she arrived at an actually impressive Cheeto - cheese dusted and craggy.
I like to collect those almonds with the slight curve, the ones that hold your thumb. And not only the curved nuts, but also the nuts that don't have the standard tear shape, that are shaped more like buttons, with a rounded edge instead of the point. Almond anomalies.
What a ridiculous person I am. I unscrew the jar and tip as many anomalies as will fit into my mouth.
“Another weird thing is that pigs don‘t get milked,” I said. “Pigs don‘t get milked.”
“Because piglets drink it all?” Bonnie said.
“Because piglets drink it all.”
“There‘s something beautiful about that,” Linus said, “beautiful and perfect.”
We toasted to piglets and didn‘t notice Theo approach.
Ebook loan is due back today and not renewable. Time to step up my reading pace. It‘s not so much that I read more slowly in digital format, but that I prefer print, so reading whatever my current ebook is generally gets relegated to those times that I don‘t have access to either print or audiobook.
so-soThis one is cute. It is the deeply sad story of an adult daughter watching her father‘s mind degrade. Too conscious of its humor at times. A bit like a Lifetime movie gone to print. But still cute, heartwarming.
#7days7covers #covercrush Day 3
Tagging @DivineDiana if you haven‘t already joined - just post 7 covers for 7 days, no explanation needed. ❤️
pickA beautifully written story of a daughter who moves back in with her parents to help keep an eye on her father who is starting to struggle with Alzheimer's. Smart, witty, humorous, sentimental, and at times, it pulls right on your heart. The journal entries from her father throughout the book are amazing and so relatable to being a parent, and the way she reverses it at the end and Ruth is making notes of her Fathers actions. Touching and clever
I love how witty this book is. I feel like I'm smiling every other page. Like this line from Ruth, thinking about her break up with Joel.
... You know what else is unfair, about Joel? That I loosened the jar lid, so somebody else could open him.
Starting this, and loved this line, such a funny observation to make to yourself.
... At one point Dad emerges, shirtless, into the kitchen, to brew himself coffee. I get my nipples from him, I realize alarmed.
Looking back over my shoulder
I can see that look in your eye
Turning my heart over and over
I never wanted to say goodbye🎶
#overmyshoulder #ayupaugust
@Cinfhen @squirrelbrain
#goodbye
