The One in a Million Boy

Author: Monica Wood

One-sentence summary: Grieving parents and a very elderly woman cope with loss by remembering together and finding a connection.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7

Our favorite thing about it: Having and elderly character as a main character was fun, fresh, and enlightening.

Our least favorite thing about it: The skipping around between past and present was a little disorienting.

Main Topics of Discussion: Loss, Parenting, Aging, Loneliness

Our favorite quote: “The story of your life never starts at the beginning. Don’t they teach you anything in school?”

Notes: We all liked this book. It maybe didn’t “wow” us, but it was at least somewhat interesting and fun to read. Having the perspective of the elderly woman was different and interesting – to think about things from her point of view – one that none of us has reached yet. We do not mind a book that skips around in time, but this one seemed to do it in a clunky way that sometimes bothered us. We also felt like the narrative dragged a bit in the middle. There’s not a lot going on, which is fine, but we all felt the drag. Here are a few other things we found important or interesting:

1. The audio version was marred by the voice of Quinn. Not good.
2. The boy was almost entirely absent. He was only seen through the other characters impressions and memories of him. He was never named. We thought this was an interesting choice on the part of the author. The boy ties everyone together, yet, he’s an unnamed, and not really main character. We do get to know him a bit, though.
3. We found it interesting that the whole book revolved around the death of a young boy, but yet, it didn’t seem heavy or depressing, really
4. But, we had a hard time coming up with a quick explanation of what exactly this book was about. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but that vagueness probably did keep it from being more impactful for us.
5. None of us loved Quinn. We know the book said he had an issue with not being able to access or feel his emotions. And man, that came through in his non-personality. He was just blah.

Memorable Meeting Moments: We ate at The Barnlight Eatery and then went to Christina’s rental house (her new house is still being repaired from fire damage) for discussion and dessert. It was also Lindsay’s birthday month.

What We Ate: We started out sharing Fried Green Tomatoes, and then all ordered our own entrees: Chili, Shrimp and Grits, Pork and Slaw Sandwich, Pot Roast, Bacon Burger. We had all sorts of cookies and brownies for dessert.