What's Worth Keeping

November 30, 2020
McLaren’s middling latest (after The Road to Enchantment) follows one family’s struggles and the unhappiness that threatens their relationships. Everyone in the Bergstrom family is miserable. Amy has recently undergone successful treatment for breast cancer, but has spent months living with the knowledge that her husband, Paul, had planned to divorce her, though he’s since agreed to try to work on the marriage. Paul, a police officer, has never dealt with the trauma of helping survivors from the rubble of the Oklahoma City bombing. Their teenage daughter, Carly, has just graduated from high school in the midst of a bout of depression, made worse by the fact that she inherited a gene from her mother that makes her more likely to develop cancer. They each eventually find a sort of peace while living apart over the summer by concentrating on things they once loved. Amy explores an old-growth forest; Paul refurbishes a house; and Carly cares for horses on a ranch. The characters’ ruminations on their unhappy family life come mainly through flashback, creating a plodding pace and making reconciliation feel inevitable. The characters, meanwhile, feel like types more than people. This is an easy one to miss.

December 15, 2020
Amy receives a devastating cancer diagnosis, and while searching for her life insurance policy, she discovers filled-out divorce papers, dated in the near future. She doesn't understand why her loving husband Paul would want to leave her, especially since she has always been there for him, especially after the Oklahoma City bombing, to which Paul was a first responder. Through alternating points of view, McLaren (The Road to Enchantment, 2017) takes readers on a journey through each family member's feelings about Amy's illness. While Paul helps Amy through her treatment, their daughter Carly starts drinking and failing classes. On the day Paul was going to file for a divorce, he instead takes Carly to stay with Amy's Aunt Rae for the summer. While Paul drives in one direction, Amy, now in remission, decides to take a healing journey all on her own. Though there are deeply hurt feelings and distrust in this family, What's Worth Keeping shows a full picture of how, while cancer can shatter both a body and a family, sometimes love can bring people back together. Readers who enjoy Emily Giffin and Caroline Leavitt will be drawn into the emotional journey of these characters in this heartwarming novel.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.