This novel is about a dysfunctional family having to deal with Alzheimer's and the relationships within that family. It was set in an idyllic setting that I could see and I did enjoy reading this story, although Ruby grew on me like mold. I could not believe the restraints on Grace. Sure she let her go bird watching, bicycling, and anything that did not require Ruby's "supervision". Her reins were so tight that Ruby HAD to snoop on her computer, lie to her and basically never telling her the whole truth on almost everything. Ruby treated her like she was incapable of being her own person. My heart went out for Grace; she tried her best even with her intellectual delay. Liz, Grace's sister and promising attorney turned alcoholic, I was hoping she would eventually turn her life around and glad she did thanks to her Russian support group Nadia. There are numerous characters that all hold an individual color to the story and I would recommend this novel to anyone who would love a good read. The ending sums up the hopes that the reader is hoping for and pulls everyone together; there is one beautiful surprise for Grace. ( )

didn't finish ( )

"Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, and at present irreversible, brain disorder that is characterized by a steady decline in cognitive, behavioral and physical abilities severe enough to interfere with everyday life and necessitate full time care. Symptoms vary from person to person, but all people with Alzheimer's disease have problems with memory loss, disorientation and thinking ability. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease may have trouble finding the right words to use, recognizing objects (such as a pencil), recognizing family and friends, and may become frustrated, irritable, and agitated. As the disease progresses, physical problems may include loss of strength and balance, and diminishing bladder and bowel control. As more and more of the brain is affected, areas that control basic life functions, like swallowing and breathing, become irreversibly damaged, resulting eventually in death"

With that said, as I am sure this is true in most families, Alzheimer's has affected our family first hand. I worked in a nursing home for 24+ years, so I knew how it affected families and caregivers. My husband's aunt suffered from this debilitating illness, thankfully for her she was in her late 80's and lived to be 94 when she died. We had to make the decision to put her in the nursing home that I worked at so she would be close to us and I knew she would get good care. Watching this former teacher, very intelligent and 'proper lady' decline to the point of being in a fetal position and refusing food was so very hard on all of us, to the point that our four children would not want to see her and just remember the aunt that they at times feared and always loved as the time went by.

Island Girl by Lynda Simmons is a story of a woman Ruby Donaldson ,aged 55, who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. At first, because of pride, she does not let anyone in her life know that she has the disease and she tries to continue her life as a hairdresser as if nothing was wrong. She had to write in a journal and use notes to get through her days. As time goes on she finds herself covering up and using excuses so no one knows what is going on with her. She wants to get all her affairs taken care of and she also starts doing research on ways to end her life when she determines that she does not want to end up not knowing who or where she is or forgetting her family.

This novel is also about Ruby's daughters Liz, who she is estranged from and Grace, the daughter Ruby is trying to protect. As in any family Ruby and her daughters have issues with each other and the more Ruby tries to protect them from the truth, the more the issues escalate. Ruby also starts having a relationship with an old flame who has a rebellious 12 year old girl who helps escalate the problems with the Donaldson women. Each person tells their story and the reader gets pulled right in and carried along to the surprising end. There are other characters that add to the richness of this story.

I think that Lynda Simmons either did a lot of research with Alzheimer's or has first hand knowledge of this debilitating disease as she tells this story with no holds barred and also with compassion not only for Ruby but all the characters in the story. I found myself laughing and crying through the book. I loved it and give it 5 stars. A must for the lover of women's fiction. ( )

When Ruby Donaldson learns she is afflicted by Alzheimer's, or Big Al as she calls it, she decides she’s not going to hang around in limbo as she becomes a shell of her former self. As she organizes and reorganizes her life to leave her family safe and well taken care of after her eventual succumbing to the inevitable, Ruby is consumed with creating a future that she will likely not be a part of for those she loves.

Although Ruby is working overtime to cobble together a future for her family, she still has a lot to concern herself with in day-to-day life. Ruby runs a salon out of the home she shares with her daughter Grace, a woman who is mildly learning disabled and whose past is burdened by a secret that has torn her family apart. Then there is Liz, Ruby’s other daughter who lives far from the island and who despises and vilifies her mother. Ruby is also surrounded by her lover of many years, Mark, and his preteen daughter, Jocelyn.

As she tries to keep the secret of her Alzheimer’s to herself, her family life begins to spill out of control. For Liz, it’s an addiction to alcohol that has taken away her career and potential for friendships. For Mark and Jocelyn, it’s a father-daughter tug-of-war for independence and dominance; and for Grace, it’s the resurfacing of memories that have been locked away for too long. When Ruby’s disease begins to advance, the time to make family reparations grows short, and it’s only when both Ruby and the people surrounding her learn to forgive that there’s a chance for the healing and restoration of her family. But it all needs to happen quickly, as Big Al is working overtime on Ruby’s mind and pushing her toward an inexorable decision that will change her life and the lives of those in her family forever.

This book was a tough customer emotionally. I’ve read books about terminal illness and the pathos it creates before, but Simmons really outdid herself when it came to portraying the potency and fire of these situations. Never before have I seen such emotional conflict or been witness to such destructive and flawed characters. Though each character had their own reasons for their anger and their actions, a lot of the time their actions seemed ultra caustic and spine-numbingly cruel. Needless to say, this made for a most intriguing reading experience and left me scanning the pages with my mouth hanging open in awe most of the time. These characters were far from PC and they didn’t care who knew it. I liked them and hated them at the same time, but what I really admired was Simmons’ ability to keep the emotional stakes high and tingling at all times.

Ruby is a resourceful and energetic woman, which is one of the reasons her diagnosis is so hard for her to swallow. She has issues with control, and I think part of the problem she had with accepting the Alzheimer's was that she would have to slowly cede all control over to the illness, despite her efforts to hang on. But Ruby’s quest for control could be damaging at times, especially in her relationship with her daughter Grace. Using her disability as an excuse, Ruby becomes an iron fist of dominance in Grace’s life. She spies on her computer habits, forbids her from contacting her sister, and keeps her close to home at all times. But this is not the only flaw in Ruby’s character, because she has volatile relationships with all the people around her, from her other daughter Liz, to her lover Mark and his daughter. I found it interesting that I could care about Ruby’s prognosis and degeneration because, frankly, she was a witch. She ran roughshod over everyone and took over whenever she got a toehold in someone’s life. She was not a nice or loving person, and at times she was supremely selfish, but Simmons made her so real and human that I couldn’t help but get invested in her plight.

The two sisters, Liz and Grace, were as different as night and day. Liz, an unrepentant and belligerent drunk, had basically washed out of her career as a lawyer and was harboring some deep-seated issues with her mother. When Liz is compelled to help a friend, she comes to realize that she does indeed still have potential and she can heal from the wounds she’s inflicted upon herself. Grace, on the other hand, was an innocent who was domineered by her mother. It was sad to watch her being limited in every sense of the word by a mother who felt she needed protection from herself and the world around her. Though Grace had difficulties in her past, she is loving, kind and is able to manage her life far more capably than anyone in her family suspects. As the sisters deal with life and their mother in their own ways, they prove to be just as persistent and unstoppable as Ruby in their own fashion and time.

Thematically this book dealt with a lot of issues and it made me ask myself a lot of questions. What is the ultimate end of control, and who does it benefit when a life is restricted by the overarching domination of another? Who’s to say when infirmity trumps quality of life, and is forgiveness of past transgressions always possible? Though this book attempts to solve these and many other issues, the outcome is not always what’s expected, and the road to restoration can be brutal and indelicate as the characters twist and contort themselves into a semblance of normality. it was a brave story, and for all its abruptness and ugliness, it felt true and realistic. In asking these questions and creating this rich drama for her characters to fight their way through, Simmons slices her way down to the nucleus of what it means to be alive and to fight for that life. As many have probably said before, the ending was rather shocking and sad, but it also had the hallmark of plausibility and credibility and it made the book all the more poignant and heartbreaking

If you’re the type of reader who likes a meaty story that will suck you into the pages, and relishes characters whom you can love and hate at the same time, you’ll doubtlessly love this book. Island Girl is not only a timely story, it’s one that’s imbued with some of the toughest emotions and situations that I’ve ever come across in a fictional work, and it’s a story I won’t soon forget. Both taut and psychologically penetrating, this is a book that will get people talking and will live on in your mind long after the final page is turned. Highly recommended.

Haven't we all walked into a room and wondered what in the heck we needed to find in there? Set car keys down and couldn't remember where on earth they might be? Spaced out about an appointment or meeting? Searched our minds for a common word that is just on the tip of our tongue and yet irretrievable in the moment? For most of us, busy as we are, these are isolated events and nothing to worry about. For some people though, these are the first manifestations of something so much worse.

Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Ruby Donaldson knows she has a limited amount of time to organize and tie up the loose endings of her life before she is lost in the fog of the especially aggressive, early onset version of the disease. Ruby is a stubborn, fiesty, and independent woman who hates having to reach out for help but her new circumstances demand it. She has long had a combative relationship with her oldest daughter, Liz. But now she needs to make things right with Liz so that when the time comes (and Ruby has no intention of letting Alzheimer's, aka Big Al, steal her away, plotting to take herself out long before that time comes), her younger daughter, the beautiful but intellectually delayed Grace, will be able to hold onto the family's home on an island a short ferry ride from Toronto, the only place Grace feels safe.

Ruby is prickly and cantankerous and she has spent a lifetime pushing people away. The Donaldson women have been famed for their strength and their eccentricities for as long as they've owned the island home and Ruby lives up to the reputation in spades. But after a year with insidious Alzheimer's and recognizing its more frequent incursions into her daily life, she reaches out to her old boyfriend, Mark, to ask for his help in finding her oldest daughter, from whom she is estranged. This first step towards connection and reconnection will change everything. Liz was once a brilliant lawyer but is now a wreck of an alcoholic, one who clings desperately to her anger and bitterness towards her mother refusing to let Ruby's diagnosis change her feelings in any way. She is consumed with rage and unhappiness but she still makes time to see her little sister every week behind their mother's back. Grace is lovely and childlike and there is a tragedy in her past that makes her unwilling to break out, even in small ways, from Ruby's stifling overprotectiveness. She is incapable of leaving the island, content to work in Ruby's beauty shop from the ground floor of the home that has been in their family for generations.

Told in the alternating voices of the three Donaldson women, Ruby, Liz, and Grace, this is not just a sad story of a strong woman fighting with every ounce of her being against this terrible disease, it is also the story of healing a divided family and looking to the future. The characters are fully developed, flawed, and believable. The obstacles that they have to overcome are mostly those they have created themselves and so the reader can sympathize with the difficulty they each face in trying to change themselves and come together before it's too late. There are many different plot threads weaving through the book and while this can sometimes be a bit overwhelming, it is also the true and messy reality of life. Each of the plot lines is also important not only to fully flesh out the characters, but to help the reader understand all of the challenges they face and to show how this family came to the place they find themselves now.

The main story, though, remains Ruby's. Simmons has done a lovely job capturing the small coping mechanisms that Ruby has developed and uses them well to illustrate Ruby's deterioration even as she puts up a valiant fight in her unwinnable war. Despite the obvious family dysfunction, Simmons has also managed to skillfully weave love and caring through the hurt and anger and secrets pulsing between her headstrong characters leaving room for hope. A lighter, more humorous novel than I would have expected, I quite enjoyed my time with the Donaldsons, rooting for them to heal within, to find the strength to change what they needed to change while remaining true at the core, and to be able to come together in the end. ( )