One Hundred Years Of Lenin & Margot - Marianne Cronin

Fiction

Rating: 9/10

This book was so sweet and so sad, and I was utterly charmed by it.

Seventeen-year-old Lenni is in a specialty hospital with “life-limiting” health issues.  There she meets eighty-three-year-old Margot when she crashes a seniors art class.  They become fast friends, each finding in the other a balm for their loneliness. They start sharing stories of their pasts with each other, and soon comes an epiphany. To paint one hundred paintings.  One for every year of their combined lives. A tangible testimonial to their existence and who they were.

In between classes Lenni decides to visit Father Arthur in the hospital chapel. Given that people claim that when you die, it’s because God is calling you back to him, she figures she should get the introduction over and done with ahead of time.  The chat’s these two unlikely friends engage in are hilarious. In one such conversation Lenni describes God as a cosmic wishing well.  She’s not wrong.

At the heart of these three characters is a longing to have made a difference in someone’s life.  In connecting with each other they come to understand that more importantly, a difference has been made in them. A reminder that friendships can be found in the most surprising of places and at the most unexpected times in one’s life.

This book packs an emotional punch, the author drops in these bittersweet arrangements of words along the way that will have the tears flowing.  To be read with an open heart and a full box of Kleenex!

Book Pairing(s): Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera, Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Miss Cecily’s Recipes For Exceptional Ladies by Vicky Zimmerman