Karen Neulander is writing what no mother wants to give to her child: the story of their life together, to be read when he's an adult. Karen has Stage IV ovarian cancer, with a possibility of two years to live. She'll never get to see her six-year-old son, Jacob, go to college, or play sports, or marry. As a single mother, it's always been the two of them against the world. She's made plans for him to live with her sister's family after her death. Then Jacob asks to meet his father. When Dave learned Karen was pregnant, he insisted he didn't want to be a father and even questioned whether the baby was his. But now he's eager to meet his son, and Jacob and Dave bond immediately. Now, on top of her guilt, anger, and grief, Karen faces a new emotion: fear that her ex will take-- -Jacob since she is dying. VERDICT -Grodstein's (The Explanation for Everything) heartbreaking, character-driven story is told in the remarkable, believable voice of a courageous, sympathetic character. Recommended for readers of Jodi Picoult, Lisa Genova, or Sally Hepworth's The Mother's Promise.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Karen Neulander has a rotten deal. Diagnosed with stage-IV ovarian cancer, she tries to manage her health-surgeries and treatments to prolong her life-as well as her career-political consultant to a philandering New York City councilman running for reelection. Most important is her six-year-old son, Jake. While Jake knows she has a terminal illness, Karen fiercely protects his world and pens a book for him-the very book we are reading, in fact-so that she can leave him something tangible as a guide for his life without her. Knowing she won't be around forever, Jake suddenly wants to find his father, Dave, the love of Karen's life, who ditched her when he learned she was pregnant. Grodstein (A Friend of the Family) deftly explores family relationships, but the device of Karen writing a book for her son is cumbersome and artificial. The power of the book is also undermined by the sentimental circumstances and predictable ending: will Karen let Dave, who has changed and is eager to have a meaningful relationship with the son he never knew he had, be a part of her son's future without her? (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Karen Neulander wasn't afraid of much, until she had to call her ex-boyfriend, Dave, to tell him about Jake, the six-year-old son he didn't know she'd had. Adding to this emotional chaos, Karen is a survivor of ovarian cancer and has no idea how long her current period of remission will last. A custody arrangement for Jake has already been planned out in the event of Karen's death, but she can't shake the feeling that Dave will try to interfere. In the face of so much turmoil, Karen decides to keep a written record of Jake's life to pass down to him after her death, and her journal, entitled Our Short History, is that effort, composed of Karen's innermost thoughts, memories of Jake's first six years, and her dreams for his future. The novel's creative structure feels incredibly personal, since Karen isn't afraid to editorialize. Grodstein manages to walk the fine line between pathos and melodrama by painting Karen as a fully realized mother, sister, and friend, never allowing the cancer to consume her complex identity. Fans of Camille Pagán's Life and Other Near-Death Experiences (2015) will love Karen's unflinchingly honest journey.--Turza, Stephanie Copyright 2017 Booklist

when I was growing up, the gold standard for cancer-themed tear-jerkers was "Something for Joey," a made-for-TV movie - based on a true story - about the bond between a big-time college football player and his fiercely loyal little brother who is dying of childhood leukemia. Now there is an entire literary genre for young readers known as "sick lit," and the most sophisticated purveyors of this treacle, like John Green in "The Fault in Our Stars," use self-awareness and multilayered narratives to defuse resistance to the Cancer Plot and make surrender all the more pleasurable. "It's not a cancer book," one character in "The Fault in Our Stars" claims about her favorite novel, "because cancer books suck." Lauren Grodstein takes a different approach with her fourth novel, "Our Short History," an unabashed tear duct rooter that should come with its own box of Kleenex Ultra Soft and a plush toy from the American Cancer Society. What sets Grodstein's novel apart is that the cancer diagnosis switches places: Jacob Neuländer, the 6-year-old boy at the center of the book, is cancer-free, while his mother, Karen, a hard-charging, 43-year-old political consultant who raised Jake on her own, has recently been found to have late-stage ovarian cancer and is facing a grim prognosis. With the time Karen has left, she undertakes to write her son a book and fill it with everything she wants him to know: a catalog of the things that have made her happy; the story of how he was named; a record of the final campaign she runs for Jimmy (Ace) Reynolds, a philandering City Council member from the Bronx; and an account of how, kicking and screaming, she allows Jake to start spending time with his biological father, a one-term congressman from New Jersey who broke Karen's heart and lives with his new wife along the Palisades. If the conceit of having Karen write an entire book to Jake in direct address gets clunky in places, particularly after her remission gives way to recurrence and her condition deteriorates, it is consistent with "sick lit" as a genre and keeps the pages turning. "I plan to be honest here," Karen promises at the novel's beginning. "I plan to be excruciatingly, extraordinarily honest. I will not edit out the truth; I will not try to make myself look better than I really was. Than I really am." This ethic of honesty compels Karen to confess uncomfortable truths to Jake - "the night you were born was not the best night of my life," she writes; "I was terrified, I was tired, I was sad" - and, especially, to give herself free rein to record the turmoil of feelings that erupt after Jake and his father meet for the first time and get along famously. They bond over Playmobil and Star Wars; she realizes, watching the two of them together, that Jake is "exactly like him." Karen seethes and lets her paranoia run wild. She imagines Jake posing for a Christmas card with his new family after she's gone; she yells at him when he suggests that his father's wife (with her "Calista Gingrich hair") would make him snacks on demand. This primal eruption of maternal jealousy and rage is the dramatic high point of the novel - "I am your only mother!" Karen howls in a $2,000 wig, a Wii controller clutched in her hand. The rest of "Our Short History," unfortunately, is content to deliver the tamer pleasures of "sick lit" for adults. ? BENJAMIN ANASTAS teaches literature and writing at Bennington College.

This novel is posed as a book written by a mother with stage 4 ovarian cancer for her young son about her coming to terms with her mortality.Karen Neulander is a successful political consultant and a happy single mother, raising her son, Jacob, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As the book begins, she and 6-year-old Jacob are spending the summer on Mercer Island, near Seattle. The hope is to get Jacob acclimated to life there with his aunt, uncle, and cousins, who will adopt him when Karen dies, in two to three years. At Jacob's insistence, Karen contacts his biological father, Davea tough task, because Karen loved Dave, was heartbroken when his response to her unplanned pregnancy was to reiterate his lack of interest in kids, and therefore left him and never told him she'd kept the baby. To her dismay, Dave is now excited to learn of his son and hopes to be involved in his life. This brings Karen to an emotional breaking point as her health deteriorates and she attempts to act as though everything is still within her control. Karen is a character many will lovedetermined, flawed, loving, witty. But two things get in the way of Grodstein's (The Explanation For Everything, 2013, etc.) natural storytelling abilities. First, the whole book is written in the past tense, but much of it takes place in the present time of the story, often making it tricky to know when an event is happening. Second, despite the title, Karen mostly describes to Jacob pieces of her past from before him or the agony she is going through as she writes. Ultimately, this seems to be more an investigation into the stages of Karen's self-grieving and less an edifying guide for her son. A poignant and realistic portrait of the struggles with ovarian cancer that chafes a bit against its frame. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.