Skip to main content

Book Review and Giveaway: Island Girl by Lynda Simmons


Ruby Donaldson is a vibrant woman, a lifelong activist who has always been completely independent and in control of her life ~ and that of at least one of her daughters. Now, at age 55, she has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, and she is determined to continue to do what she wants to do despite what everyone else thinks. And what she wants to do is end her life before the disease takes over completely. But first, she has to pull her family back together before she goes.

Island Girl by Lynda Simmons is a touching and heartbreaking story, but it is also so much more. The story is told by three characters: Ruby, her oldest daughter Liz, and her youngest daughter Grace. While Ruby is dealing with Alzheimer's, her daughters have their own struggles. Liz is a former lawyer turned alcoholic after a tragic event related to her sister a few years ago. But she finds herself in the position to help a friend if she can only manage to straighten herself out. Grace has always been a little slow, so her mother has tried to shelter her and protect her all her life, which led to a major conflict between Ruby and Liz that Ruby is determined to resolve before she loses herself to "Big Al."

In addition to the challenges between mother and daughters, Ruby also finds herself reunited with a former lover who has always been like a father figure to her daughters. He is desperately trying to get Ruby to change her mind about doing herself in before the Alzheimer's takes over. And he is also determined to get mother and daughters back together again before it's too late.

This is a wonderful family drama that has plenty of storylines to keep the pages turning, without being overly complex. Despite the serious nature of the story, Simmons includes plenty of laughter and happiness as well. I will say I was concerned about how I would like hearing about Alzheimer's from Ruby's perspective since one of my favorite books, Still Alice by Lisa Genova, also has a woman with Alzheimer's as the narrator. But this book was very different, and I would highly recommend it. It's much more of a family story and gets into many other topics beyond Alzheimer's, including alcoholism, family dynamics, activism, suicide, coming of age issues, and much more. I would say Island Girl would make an excellent book club selection as well.

My Rating: 5/5

Read an excerpt

Visit the author's website, or find her on Facebook.

Read other reviews of Island Girl at TLC Book Tours

This review was written based on a copy of Island Girl that I received from Pump Up Your Book in exchange for an honest review.

GIVEAWAY

The author has graciously offered a copy of Island Girl to one of my readers. This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian addresses only. To enter, just leave a comment below with your email address.

For extra entries:
  • Leave a separate comment if you follow My Book Retreat through Google Friend Connect.
  • Leave a separate comment if you follow @MyBookRetreat on Twitter.
  • Leave a separate comment if you Like My Book Retreat on Facebook.
The contest ends on Saturday, July 2nd at midnight Eastern Time. The winner will be picked using Random.org and notified by e-mail. If they do not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Tina's BlogJune 29, 2011 at 9:05 AM

    This sounds like a great book. Please enter me.
    ristaut@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. dsypherdJune 30, 2011 at 9:31 AM

    I would like to read this book! dsypherd@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. LindyLouMac in ItalyJune 30, 2011 at 3:58 PM

    It is good to be back at last catching up with your blogging activities, what a shame I cannot enter for this give away, it sounds interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ikkinlalaJuly 1, 2011 at 4:52 PM

    This sounds interesting!

    ikkinlala AT yahoo DOT ca

    ReplyDelete
  5. MichelleJuly 1, 2011 at 5:06 PM

    What a great giveaway and review! Thanks for the chance to win!
    mrsmchappell at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  6. MichelleJuly 1, 2011 at 5:06 PM

    Following with Google Friend Connect
    mrsmchappell at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  7. MichelleJuly 1, 2011 at 5:07 PM

    Following you on twitter as mrsmchappell
    mrsmchappell at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  8. M.A.D.July 1, 2011 at 6:37 PM

    I would enjoy reading this, thank you for the chance :)

    Mary D
    zenrei57 (at) hotmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  9. M.A.D.July 1, 2011 at 6:38 PM

    Mary D
    zenrei57 (at) hotmail dot com

    And am a new follower via
    Google friend connect

    ReplyDelete
  10. BrittanyGaleJuly 1, 2011 at 10:43 PM

    Awesome! Count me in :D

    quixoticdreamer(at)hotmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  11. BrittanyGaleJuly 1, 2011 at 10:44 PM

    I follow via GFC quixoticdreamer

    quixoticdreamer(at)hotmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  12. BrittanyGaleJuly 1, 2011 at 10:46 PM

    I follow via Twitter @quixoticdreamer

    quixoticdreamer(at)hotmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  13. BrittanyGaleJuly 1, 2011 at 10:47 PM

    I liked your Facebook page

    Brittany Gale

    quixoticdreamer(at)hotmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  14. sweetsueJuly 2, 2011 at 12:09 AM

    This sounds like a good read. Alzheimers is such a sad disease!
    smchester at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  15. sweetsueJuly 2, 2011 at 12:10 AM

    I follow you on GFC.
    smchester at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  16. MonaJuly 2, 2011 at 4:58 PM

    Thanks for the giveaway :)
    This book sounds like something I would love. I enjoy books about family dynamics/drama.

    monagargATyahooDOTcom

    ReplyDelete
  17. MonaJuly 2, 2011 at 4:59 PM

    GFC(Mona Garg)

    moagargATyahooDOTcom

    ReplyDelete
  18. MonaJuly 2, 2011 at 4:59 PM

    Twitter(@Kulmona)

    monagargATyahooDOTcom

    ReplyDelete
  19. MonaJuly 2, 2011 at 5:00 PM

    FB(Mona Garg)

    monagargATyahooDOTcom

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Popular posts from this blog

Getting back to blogging

It seems that blogging has dropped to the bottom of my list for the past year, and was pretty low for the year or two prior to that. I love to read, and am continuing to do so, but as my regular readers know I haven't been around much. My last blog post was almost a year ago!!

There are many things that have taken me away from blogging. Work has been much more challenging and interesting these past few years, but that means I really don't want to get back on the computer when I get home at night - or on the weekends.

Family life has been more busy with kids having multiple activities in the evenings, leaving little time to just hang out and write about the books that I read.

I will admit to a bit of a Facebook addiction, which means way too much time spent scrolling through my newsfeed instead of doing something more productive. This is one of the things I'm working on and hoping that this will free up some time for getting back to the blog.

Overall, life is good. Work is …
Post a Comment
Read more

Banned Books Week: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park

This is the end of Banned Books Week and unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to write about banned books this year. But I did want to include at least one post about it, so today I wanted to share one of the book series that it seems most people are surprised to find on the list: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.

According to Wikipedia:
The Junie B. Jones series came in at #71 on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books from 2000-2009. Reasons cited are poor social values taught by the books and Junie B. Jones not being considered a good role model due to her mouthiness and bad spelling/grammar. This is an interesting example of a banned book. Many times there are serious, controversial topics featured in books that are challenged. Things like homosexuality, drugs, vulgar language, etc. You can actually understand why people may not want their children to read those books, and why they may challenge their inclusion in school libra…
10 comments
Read more

April Reading Review

Where exactly did April go? I swear it was just the middle of March and now it's May. Once again, I'm going to provide a quick review of each of the books I read last month. For the last two weeks of the month, I participated in the Spring Into Horror Readathon hosted by Michelle at Seasons of Reading. The only rule was that you had to read at least one book that was horror, thriller, etc. I read one book that qualified. With the exception of the first book in my list, the books I mention below were read during the readathon


My book club's May selection was Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. I had started reading this nonfiction book about the author's work representing men, women and children who were on death row in March but finished the book in April. This is an eye-opening story that everyone at my book club discussion agreed should be required reading for law schools and police officers and even legislators who are making the laws related to judgements. I learned to…
3 comments
Read more