When your loved one loses his mind…

Synopsis

Does the heart never really forget?

When Ava’s partner Will is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, the doctors give Will one chance to survive – an operation which means he will lose his recent memory. Ava begs him to take the chance, sure that she can cope with Will forgetting her. After all, they have something very special to live for.

But they are also keeping a heart-breaking secret, and if Will loses his memory, Ava will have to carry that secret alone.

Can they rebuild their love from scratch or will their secrets and past come between them? Will Ava really be a stranger when Will wakes up – or does the heart never really forget…

Giselle Green returns with a heart-breaking, deeply moving story of love, loss, and what it really means to be alive. Perfect for all fans of Jodi Picoult, Susan Lewis and Diane Chamberlain.

My review

Ava and Will are a couple standing in front of an impossible decision…
Will has a terminal brain tumour which can be cured but which will cause him to lose his memory.
At first Will does not want to take that chance, but Ava cannot imagine a life without Will. So she does whatever she can to persuade him to take the risk.

She is sure that that she can cope with Will not remembering her. He fell in love once with her, so surely he will fall again in love with her? And also, it’s not only their future at stake here…
But they are also carrying a secret and going through with the surgery will mean that Ava has to carry that burden alone.

Will their love be strong enough? Or will Will always see Ava as a stranger?

This was a heck of a heart – wrenching story! From the very start I felt the pain this couple was feeling.
And having the dilemma of losing your memory or losing your life… of course it would make sense to do the operation, but I understood Will… it would mean losing your memory. And not knowing what you would lose…
So when he decides to go through with it, he makes Ava promise to keep their secret from him.

Rather quickly I figured out what the secret was, and again, I could understand Will. But on the other hand, it was not something unsurmountable. It would be a hard pill to digest, but there are so many examples in the world of how it could be.

When after the operation, Will does not recognize Ava, and he has lost the last seven years, I can only imagine what hell Ava must be going through too…

This is a story about not giving up as Ava is determined to let Will fall in love again. Yet when she understands what must be done at a point, she makes the right decision.
For me this was proof of how much Ava loves Will, putting his own happiness before hers.

What gave me a spark of hope was that, even if Will does not remember everything, he feels the right things. Even if he has no memories and does not remember Ava, his heart seems to remember and recognize Ava.

This story nearly made me cry as I just wanted Will  to get miraculously his memory back. It also made me want to yell at him sometimes as he was being so damn stubborn! And also Ava was not always doing what I wanted her to do.
But that was also the charm of this book. Life does not always go how you want to go. And no matter how many lemons life throws you, you can always make the best lemonade of it!