Read the book in a day. If it had been my personal copy, I would have underscored any number of sentences--things I would want to go back and re-read, type up and keep out in the open so I could again "feel". Ruth's friends were real, ones I hope surround me when I'm in my last days. Must add that there were a few times the pages seemed like a soap opera, but the greater part of the book was very meaningful and thought provoking.

In this novel, Elizabeth Berg does an amazing job giving us a view into a friendship of two best friends. Ruth is dying from breast cancer and Ann is constantly by her side. You get a true sense of what it is like traveling this road from both women's perspective; the person dying and the one left behind, it is so difficult for both to face life and death without the other. This novel is wrought with emotion; deep despair, fear, hope, laughter, and above all love.

The book delved into the real content of friendships. She had friends but these were friends that you die with - until the end when she decided it may be too much for them. It was an interesting look into relationships and how the clarity of life evades the friendships when you know your time is waning. Honesty, longing for more time, and the basics of life are put front and center in this book.