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tslreads's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting, deeply personal look at dying, caring for someone who's dying, caring for someone with a lifelong illness, and the U.S. healthcare system. I had trouble getting into the book. Shriver's writing is beautiful, but sometimes just too much, overblown. I didn't quit reading, but I had no problem putting it down and coming back days later. It wasn't until the last 150 pages or so that I really couldn't put it down.
The main character, Shep Knacker, has Jobian qualities and most of the other characters are so extremely negative and/or insensitive and horrible that it got annoying at times for me. However, I really appreciate the dialogue that this book might ignite if you start discussing its topics with others. The very real difficulties of long term sickness, money issues, life flying by us when we aren't ready to go yet... are important issues that sometimes we ignore and just can't get ourselves to address.
The main character, Shep Knacker, has Jobian qualities and most of the other characters are so extremely negative and/or insensitive and horrible that it got annoying at times for me. However, I really appreciate the dialogue that this book might ignite if you start discussing its topics with others. The very real difficulties of long term sickness, money issues, life flying by us when we aren't ready to go yet... are important issues that sometimes we ignore and just can't get ourselves to address.
pokey's review against another edition
3.0
Didn't enjoy this one as much as some of her others...the writing is still lyrical but the characters are a little too preachy
leahjespersen's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer
Moderate: Suicide
tiffanynz's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant. I laughed, I cried. I was entertained, I was educated. I got angry (but I am so grateful not to be living under the US health system). A bloody depressing book but brilliant nonetheless. The characters were so real I kept having that eery "do I know you" feeling that you get when you see someone off TV but can't quite place how you "know" them. Lionel Shriver is a fabulous author who has a real gift with words. I am sorry to have finished it and to have to say goodbye to Shep. What a great guy. We all need a Shep in our lives.
I can't claim honestly to have enjoyed this book. The subject matter was far too painful for that. But it was a book I didn't want to put down. But when I did, it certainly made me grateful for all that I have, especially my health.
I can't claim honestly to have enjoyed this book. The subject matter was far too painful for that. But it was a book I didn't want to put down. But when I did, it certainly made me grateful for all that I have, especially my health.
alongapath's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
When I started this book, I had to look up 'co-pay' and 'co-insured' on the ol' internet since those are terms I had never heard before. So ... you can imagine the steep learning curve I surmounted as my education in the american health care system grew, page by page, over the course of this book. Not only is it astonishingly abysmal to have people bankrupted by their health expenses but it is a well-kept secret beyond the US border and, more surprisingly, within.
For the most part, we follow Shep and Jackson - two handymen who have been working together for decades. Shep is a dreamer. Ever since he was a child, he has fantasized about leaving the US in order to live a simpler life in a 2nd or 3rd world country which is unencumbered by the troubles of money and wealth. His entire life has been motivated towards creating a handsome nest egg of money (approx $800K) that will fund his 'After Life'. He plans to drop everything and move 'there' where he will live off his savings for the rest of his days. Whether or not his wife and children join him is yet to be determined but everyone know his plans.
On the day that Shep finally decides to launch into his After Life, he sits down to tell his wife, Glynis, that their plane leaves at the end of the week - but Glynis has an announcement of her own. She has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. Her doctor has given every encouragement that chemo and medications will cure her so she and Shep begin the process of using all the After Life savings to save her life. Despite having given notice at his job, Shep has to keep working for a vile boss in order to keep his health insurance, which seems to cover less than 40% of the bills.
Then Shep's 80+ year old dad has a fall, breaks his hip and ends up in hospital, unable to live independently for a while, but also unable to afford the daily hospital fees or a full-time caregiver. He ends up in a home where he contracts c-diff, requiring isolation and intravenous antibiotics. These costs are also tacked onto Shep's After Life fund.
Jackson, the co-worker, has a daughter, Flicka, who has been gravely ill since birth with wildly complex needs, including G-tube feeding, mobility issues and compromised immunity. Despite the 24/7 care that Flicka requires, Jackson's wife Carol has had to take on a full-time job in order to have a second health insurance provider to bolster their coverage. Their days are filled with mundane work in unfulfilling careers and their nights are filled with trying to keep Flicka alive, with medications, hourly feedings, and infection control. (There is a lot of ink used to describe Flicka's symptoms and needs - but her illness is a real one with real costs that real people have)
The book is often dull. The mind-numbing accounts of symptoms, low self-worth and bodily functions are exhausting. But somehow I was lulled along, almost enjoying the show. I didn't really understand the role of Zach, a 15 year old son who was barely given a speaking part during the whole year-long drama. I expected Shriver to invent an opioid addiction or gambling issue for Zach which would further damage the family's health. But no. He just sat in his locked room for 12 months -so why have him as a character at all?
It really bothered me that Shriver made Gabe Knack get on a number of planes and travel through multiple airports across the globe while viscously sick with c-difficile! I can't get the image out of my mind - of Gabe and Shep crowded in a tiny airplane bathroom while he has explosive diarrhea everywhere. This is really gross but more so it is so ignorant. I know this was written long before covid-19 but it is so much worse that not wearing a mask when infected.
I do admire Shriver's writing and her ranting. She is angry about US healthcare (and a whole lot more!) and it shows. I feel like Jackson's rants (and there was a lot of ranting!!) were really Shriver's inner voice. But, too often, I was sifting back through her diatribes (often with offshoots bracketed by parentheses) -or sub-text inserted directly into the paragraph by means of dashes- trying to find the verb so that the sentence made sense. It was exhausting at times. For a 500+ page book, I hardly needed to reread half of it in search of grammar.
For the most part, we follow Shep and Jackson - two handymen who have been working together for decades. Shep is a dreamer. Ever since he was a child, he has fantasized about leaving the US in order to live a simpler life in a 2nd or 3rd world country which is unencumbered by the troubles of money and wealth. His entire life has been motivated towards creating a handsome nest egg of money (approx $800K) that will fund his 'After Life'. He plans to drop everything and move 'there' where he will live off his savings for the rest of his days. Whether or not his wife and children join him is yet to be determined but everyone know his plans.
On the day that Shep finally decides to launch into his After Life, he sits down to tell his wife, Glynis, that their plane leaves at the end of the week - but Glynis has an announcement of her own. She has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. Her doctor has given every encouragement that chemo and medications will cure her so she and Shep begin the process of using all the After Life savings to save her life. Despite having given notice at his job, Shep has to keep working for a vile boss in order to keep his health insurance, which seems to cover less than 40% of the bills.
Then Shep's 80+ year old dad has a fall,
Jackson, the co-worker, has a daughter, Flicka, who has been gravely ill since birth with wildly complex needs, including G-tube feeding, mobility issues and compromised immunity. Despite the 24/7 care that Flicka requires, Jackson's wife Carol has had to take on a full-time job in order to have a second health insurance provider to bolster their coverage. Their days are filled with mundane work in unfulfilling careers and their nights are filled with trying to keep Flicka alive, with medications, hourly feedings, and infection control. (There is a lot of ink used to describe Flicka's symptoms and needs - but her illness is a real one with real costs that real people have)
The book is often dull. The mind-numbing accounts of symptoms, low self-worth and bodily functions are exhausting. But somehow I was lulled along, almost enjoying the show. I didn't really understand the role of Zach, a 15 year old son who was barely given a speaking part during the whole year-long drama. I expected Shriver to invent an opioid addiction or gambling issue for Zach which would further damage the family's health. But no. He just sat in his locked room for 12 months -so why have him as a character at all?
It really bothered me that Shriver made Gabe Knack
I do admire Shriver's writing and her ranting. She is angry about US healthcare (and a whole lot more!) and it shows. I feel like Jackson's rants (and there was a lot of ranting!!) were really Shriver's inner voice. But, too often, I was sifting back through her diatribes (often with offshoots bracketed by parentheses) -or sub-text inserted directly into the paragraph by means of dashes- trying to find the verb so that the sentence made sense. It was exhausting at times. For a 500+ page book, I hardly needed to reread half of it in search of grammar.
librarianlopez's review against another edition
3.0
I really liked the ending, but I felt like the book was slow in the middle. I definitely did some skimming in the middle of the book, wondering if I was going to make it through. It didn't pull me in like some books do. I'm one of those readers that gets sucked in and stops doing anything else besides reading. This absolutely did not happen with this book. When I got to the ending though, I was really happy that I had read it and felt really attached to the characters so I'm glad I didn't give up in the middle.
The author's personal relationship to mesothelioma that she writes about at the end of the book was very touching and made the story that much more powerful.
The author's personal relationship to mesothelioma that she writes about at the end of the book was very touching and made the story that much more powerful.
april_does_feral_sometimes's review against another edition
4.0
‘So Much for That’ by Lionel Shriver is an odd book that is mostly about a terrible subject - dying slowly from incurable diseases while going bankrupt from copays and deductibles in the American health care system. Our criminally insufficient yet expensive private insurance coverage with its schedules of payments, secret rules about in-network and out-network services, and the Byzantine billing structure of separate bills from every doctor and clinic and lab and hospital is detailed in this interesting book.
The novel also describes, through the characters, a lot of angst about everything else in being a citizen of America. The incomprehensible maze of taxes, for instance.
The dying characters:
Glynis Knacker, sculpture/jewelry artist. Diagnosis: mesothelioma.
Flicka Burdina, seventeen-year-old high school student. Diagnosis: familial dysautonomia
Gabriel Knacker, retired minister. Diagnosis: old age.
Forty-eight-year-old Shepard Knacker wants to leave his fifty-year-old wife Glynis and move to Pemba, Africa. His daughter is graduating from college, his fifteen-year-old son Zack is growing roots in front of his gaming computer in his bedroom. Shep hates his boss. He has been saving money for decades in preparation of his lifelong plan of leaving America for “The Afterlife”. His portfolio has $731,778. He will give Glynis half although he thinks she didn’t earn any of it. Shep has asked her to leave with him many times. While she has enjoyed their vacations all over the world, she doesn’t want to move to a primitive place like Africa, even if it’s a vacation island where middle-class Americans could live like wealthy people.
Shep started a company, Knack of All Trades, two decades ago. It is a small construction company specializing in handyman tasks. It did very well, a going concern. Shep hired Jackson Burdina, his best friend, among others. One of his other employees, Randy Pogatchnik, a wealthy man, bought Knack for a million dollars eight years ago. Ever since, Randy has been changing Knack for the worse while at the same time picking on Shep, who stayed on as an employee. Shep was a decent employer. Randy is not. One of the things he changed was the company’s health plan. It is a cheaper one.
Bags packed and hidden in a closet, Shep once again asks Glynis to leave with him. Again, Glynis says no. But she has more to say this time. She tells him she has cancer. Silently, Shep unpacks his bags.
Jackson Burdina has a beautiful wife, Carol, and two daughters. Heather is healthy but feeling left out because her older sister Flicka is not healthy. Carol used to work until they found out what had been wrong with their firstborn, Flicka. Her disease is so terrible, gentle reader! Carol must work around the clock at home to keep Flicka alive. Health insurance is an absolute necessity in keeping Flicka alive as well. Her medication list is huge, as are the bills for the constant ER visits.
Shep’s sister Beryl is a documentary film artist. She seems to live primarily off of ‘loans’ from Shep, although she makes some money. Beryl is a leftist who complains loudly about capitalism and its built-in selfishness but she apparently does very little to help others. She is very healthy. She lives in Manhattan in a rent-controlled apartment she is subleasing. However, Beryl will have to find a new place because the landlord has decided to clean out all of the subleasers.
Shep tells her she should move in with their elderly father, Gabe, who needs much help with household activities in his house. He also needs a personal healthcare worker although he doesn’t think so. He can’t pay for a home healthcare worker. Gabe doesn’t have a supplemental Medicare plan. None of them know what they will do if he ever needs to go in a nursing home. Medicare does not cover nursing homes. Beryl protests and demands Shep give her some of the million dollars he has for a condo. Shep tells her the piggy bank is closed because of Glynis’s cancer.
Shep is too nice, gentle reader. Throughout the book, he always wants to do the right thing. But even more, he wants to be the guy everyone turns to for help. His schtick is he is the fix-it guy. Telling Beryl he can’t support her anymore is literally the first time he has said ‘no’ to anyone.
Jackson is having problems too. You’d think Flicka’s daily life-threatening issues would be more than enough to occupy him along with working at Knack, but Jackson is foolish. He thinks his wife is too good for him (Carol is as cool temperamentally as a snow queen despite Flicka’s mental and physical issues). So Jackson, who has to resist an urge to gamble now and then, has fallen for another kind of gamble - body enhancement surgery from a quack. It did not go well. He has two secret credit cards that Carol doesn’t know about, which paid for the surgery. These credit cards are in addition to the massive health care expenses of Flicka’s that insurance doesn’t cover.
Frankly, I am unable to decide which family is living in the worst hell caused by a family member’s poor health.
But that’s not all. These characters are normal Americans, plugged into social media, the news, and voting issues, caring/angry /concerned about the various Top Ten crises occupying the country. Also all of the stupid fads, the celebrities, the environmental causes, political scandals, the foodie craze, etc. etc. etc.
The noise and stress we Americans live with became very clear to me, reader. I am googling off-the-grid locations right after I type this period...
The novel also describes, through the characters, a lot of angst about everything else in being a citizen of America. The incomprehensible maze of taxes, for instance.
The dying characters:
Glynis Knacker, sculpture/jewelry artist. Diagnosis: mesothelioma.
Flicka Burdina, seventeen-year-old high school student. Diagnosis: familial dysautonomia
Gabriel Knacker, retired minister. Diagnosis: old age.
Forty-eight-year-old Shepard Knacker wants to leave his fifty-year-old wife Glynis and move to Pemba, Africa. His daughter is graduating from college, his fifteen-year-old son Zack is growing roots in front of his gaming computer in his bedroom. Shep hates his boss. He has been saving money for decades in preparation of his lifelong plan of leaving America for “The Afterlife”. His portfolio has $731,778. He will give Glynis half although he thinks she didn’t earn any of it. Shep has asked her to leave with him many times. While she has enjoyed their vacations all over the world, she doesn’t want to move to a primitive place like Africa, even if it’s a vacation island where middle-class Americans could live like wealthy people.
Shep started a company, Knack of All Trades, two decades ago. It is a small construction company specializing in handyman tasks. It did very well, a going concern. Shep hired Jackson Burdina, his best friend, among others. One of his other employees, Randy Pogatchnik, a wealthy man, bought Knack for a million dollars eight years ago. Ever since, Randy has been changing Knack for the worse while at the same time picking on Shep, who stayed on as an employee. Shep was a decent employer. Randy is not. One of the things he changed was the company’s health plan. It is a cheaper one.
Bags packed and hidden in a closet, Shep once again asks Glynis to leave with him. Again, Glynis says no. But she has more to say this time. She tells him she has cancer. Silently, Shep unpacks his bags.
Jackson Burdina has a beautiful wife, Carol, and two daughters. Heather is healthy but feeling left out because her older sister Flicka is not healthy. Carol used to work until they found out what had been wrong with their firstborn, Flicka. Her disease is so terrible, gentle reader! Carol must work around the clock at home to keep Flicka alive. Health insurance is an absolute necessity in keeping Flicka alive as well. Her medication list is huge, as are the bills for the constant ER visits.
Shep’s sister Beryl is a documentary film artist. She seems to live primarily off of ‘loans’ from Shep, although she makes some money. Beryl is a leftist who complains loudly about capitalism and its built-in selfishness but she apparently does very little to help others. She is very healthy. She lives in Manhattan in a rent-controlled apartment she is subleasing. However, Beryl will have to find a new place because the landlord has decided to clean out all of the subleasers.
Shep tells her she should move in with their elderly father, Gabe, who needs much help with household activities in his house. He also needs a personal healthcare worker although he doesn’t think so. He can’t pay for a home healthcare worker. Gabe doesn’t have a supplemental Medicare plan. None of them know what they will do if he ever needs to go in a nursing home. Medicare does not cover nursing homes. Beryl protests and demands Shep give her some of the million dollars he has for a condo. Shep tells her the piggy bank is closed because of Glynis’s cancer.
Shep is too nice, gentle reader. Throughout the book, he always wants to do the right thing. But even more, he wants to be the guy everyone turns to for help. His schtick is he is the fix-it guy. Telling Beryl he can’t support her anymore is literally the first time he has said ‘no’ to anyone.
Jackson is having problems too. You’d think Flicka’s daily life-threatening issues would be more than enough to occupy him along with working at Knack, but Jackson is foolish. He thinks his wife is too good for him (Carol is as cool temperamentally as a snow queen despite Flicka’s mental and physical issues). So Jackson, who has to resist an urge to gamble now and then, has fallen for another kind of gamble - body enhancement surgery from a quack. It did not go well. He has two secret credit cards that Carol doesn’t know about, which paid for the surgery. These credit cards are in addition to the massive health care expenses of Flicka’s that insurance doesn’t cover.
Frankly, I am unable to decide which family is living in the worst hell caused by a family member’s poor health.
But that’s not all. These characters are normal Americans, plugged into social media, the news, and voting issues, caring/angry /concerned about the various Top Ten crises occupying the country. Also all of the stupid fads, the celebrities, the environmental causes, political scandals, the foodie craze, etc. etc. etc.
The noise and stress we Americans live with became very clear to me, reader. I am googling off-the-grid locations right after I type this period...
foxynz's review against another edition
4.0
Shriver's book always make you think about what you would do in that position. Her characters are real and flawed and brilliant. While this is not one of her more entertaining reads, and some parts were a bit too artistic for my liking, it was a moving story of love and life.
nancf's review against another edition
3.0
Lionel Shriver, in the voice of Shep, expressed how I felt about this book.
"Remember how sometimes, in the middle, a movie seems to drag? I get restless, and take a leak, or go for popcorn. But sometimes, the last part, it heats up, and then right before the credits one of us starts to cry - well, then you forget about the crummy middle, don't you? You don't care about the fact that it started slow, or had some plot twist along the way that didn't scan. Because it moved you, because it finally pulled together, you think, when you walk out, that was a good movie, and you're glad you went." (404)
I am glad that I perservered with this book, because the last section of the book did make it all worth it.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"He [Jackson] reserved special contempt for the accountants and lawyers, both of whom slyly implied that they were on your side, when this bloated, parasitic caste of interlocutors effectively constituted a penumbral extension of the State, their extortionate fees amounting to more taxes." (76)
"It doesn't make any earthly sense that just because I take on an employee to clear other people's hairy drains, suddenly I'm supposed to pay for his ingrown toenails." (250)
"You had to make do with the years of their lives that the dead left you instead." (426)
"Remember how sometimes, in the middle, a movie seems to drag? I get restless, and take a leak, or go for popcorn. But sometimes, the last part, it heats up, and then right before the credits one of us starts to cry - well, then you forget about the crummy middle, don't you? You don't care about the fact that it started slow, or had some plot twist along the way that didn't scan. Because it moved you, because it finally pulled together, you think, when you walk out, that was a good movie, and you're glad you went." (404)
I am glad that I perservered with this book, because the last section of the book did make it all worth it.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"He [Jackson] reserved special contempt for the accountants and lawyers, both of whom slyly implied that they were on your side, when this bloated, parasitic caste of interlocutors effectively constituted a penumbral extension of the State, their extortionate fees amounting to more taxes." (76)
"It doesn't make any earthly sense that just because I take on an employee to clear other people's hairy drains, suddenly I'm supposed to pay for his ingrown toenails." (250)
"You had to make do with the years of their lives that the dead left you instead." (426)