Review of Five Days by Douglas Kennedy

Five Days is my introduction to author Douglas Kennedy and has left a lasting impression on me I will not soon shake. Five Days is the story of Laura, a radiographic technologist, employed at a small hospital on the coast of Maine. She is mother to a college  son and a soon-to-be graduating from high school daughter. She is also the wife to a very unemployed husband who seems to blame her for his lack of employment. The idea that the empty nest she's approaching soon with the graduation of her daughter scares her into realizing this isn't the marraige she wants. A work related trip to Boston gives Laura the break she desperately needs from her life. During this trip, Laura meets and finds refuge in an intelligent salesman named Richard Copeland.

Kennedy writes his chacters with such dimensionality and truth that I can easily see the worn down wife who's only goal has been pleasing others. The unemployed husband who's subject to working a job he is overly qualified for just to help ends meet. And the teenaged daughter who sees the amount of crap their mother is going through and actually cares that they find release. The tension that Laura feels at any time in this novel is spot on for a woman who's at the end of her ropes and is wondering how she got here. Where does she go from here?

This novel also includes a love story that will have readers wonder can someone really, truly fall in love over the course of a weekend. The excitement in meeting someone who compliments you in every way and is your equal is one of the most envious feelings that translates well through Five Days. There's a strong case for the possibility that love can happen honestly and wholly when you least expect it. I felt the relationship that blossoms between Richard and Laura was definitely organic. I will note that at times I felt that they reminded me of an episode of Dawson's Creek where the need for a dictionary or thesaurus is necessary to translate whatever they were saying to make sense of it.

Overall, I really adored Five Days. It's the story of so many comtemporary women and families. This novel about the risks we take and the ones we don't that ultimately dictate the course of our lives is refreshing read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a smart romance to indulge in. Five Days also explores hope, loneliness, and true love. This novel makes me hope I am not a person who has talked themselves into a life they don't want because of lack of courage. ****