Two Weeks by Karen Kingsbury

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Two Weeks: A Novel by Karen Kingsbury

Karen Kingsbury does it again. Only four chapters in and I was wiping my tears. I haven't read a lot of Karen's books in the last couple of years, but this is the second one this year and I am really wanting to go back and start at the beginning and read all of her backlists.

This book is once again about the Baxter's, a lovely close-knit family that Karen has devoted many books to. The main character is Cole, an 18-year-old son of Ashley Baxter Blake. He is mature for his age, compassionate and completely sold out for God. Elise, the other main character, is also 18 and one semester of bad choices has led to a teen pregnancy. This is the journey of first love, hard choices, redemption, and lasts. And I hope it's not the last we will hear of Cole and Elise. I want to know how their story ends.

This book gripped me. I couldn't read it fast enough and yet I didn't want it to end. I think there were a few reasons for this, one was in the early pages of the book and a little girl that was born too soon. Those kinds of stories will always move me to tears because I relive my own heartache through the pages of a book. Secondly, I think it was because Karen emphasized Ashley's journey through this book as well. Cole is her oldest son and he is supposed to be heading off to college in the fall and she is facing some lasts with her son: his last breakfast, his last day as a high school student, etc. etc. And Ashley reflects back about how she thought this day would never come back when Cole was little, that it was a million years away. And I need that perspective now when I'm in the trenches of mothing littles and I wonder if the day will ever come that they will grow up. It seems so far away and yet it's going to be right here before I know it, so the challenge this book gave me was to treasure every moment.

I also really like the relationship Cole had with his parents--he talked to them about everything and that is something I want my own children to have.

My takeaway from this book is something I already mentioned: treasure each moment. I don't know when it will be the last time my daughter wants to sit on my lap and be comforted. I don't know when the last time will be that they will take their favorite blanket to bed with them. And quite frankly, as the book also shows, I don't know, but that the last time I see them may be long before I am ready to give them up.

I received this book from Net Galley and was not required to write a positive review.

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