Megan's Way by Melissa FosterMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
When Megan Taylor's cancer strikes back with a vengeance, she makes a decision to stop taking her medication so that her 14-year-old daughter, Olivia, would not have to watch her health deteriorate over a long period of time. Megan's Way follows her journey to, and after, death, and explores the impact it has on Olivia as well as her group of friends.
I guess people have their own ways of thinking, but I imagine that having a longer span of time with Megan, even if she were sick, would have been better for Olivia, than to watch her die so quickly. To each her own, I guess.
As much as I would have liked to give this book a better rating, everything from the middle of the book onwards culminated, for me, in a what-the-heck-did-I-just-read ending. Part of it stems from ideological (or maybe theological) differences, as there are very vague semi-religious rituals in the story which seem to be a mix of Buddhism, paganism and a belief in God (I hesitate to say Christianity, though there were frequent prayers to "Lord" and "God" which, in a Western society would normally indicate Christianity/Catholicism) which left me rather confused. And then there was the prophecy/foretelling by the fortune teller in the beginning of the story which doesn't appear anywhere else until it is mentioned again at the very end, leaving you with this strange aftertaste of, "so what did it really mean? Did it actually mean anything?"
The flashbacks, while helping to tell the back story, were also, I felt, a little overdone. I don't know. I don't think there would have been a better way to show all the back story that Foster wanted to reveal, but it just didn't sit well with me, especially having so many of them in the last half of the book. Maybe there could have been more revelation in the beginning half.
Finally, there is the revelation of the convoluted sexual relationships between the four friends (Megan, Holly, Jack and Peter) which leaves you reeling as to WHO ARE OLIVIA'S REAL PARENTS???? (I hope that's not a spoiler. Hah)
I really don't know how to rate this book. I normally leave 1 stars for books that I had trouble finishing, but I didn't have trouble finishing this even though I didn't really like it. The writing was okay enough for me to continue and get to the end. I guess it's somewhere between a 1 and a 2.
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