Inside the O'Briens - Lisa Genova

Lisa Genova is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. Similar to Jodi Picoult, she is able to take a topic and give it a personal touch, a step into someone elses life. In this - her newest book, we meet Joe O'Brien a forty four year old Boston cop. Married and with four children, he begins to notice slight changes, dropping things,loss of balance and having difficulty writing reports. Finally - after a visit to a Neurologist he is diagnosed with Huntingtons Disease. A fatal hereditary nero- degenerative disease that has no treatment and no cure.

How his family deal with this, is the basis of this story, especially when the kids discover they have a 50/50 chance of following in their fathers footsteps, and a diagnostic test is able to predict their chance of also having Huntingtons. 

I have met several people with this disease, and people in the same position as the children, and it is such a difficult choice to face. I think that Lisa Genova does justice to their stories and the difficult journey they are on.