Review: Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong

    Rachel Khong's Goodbye, Vitamin is a bittersweet glimpse into the life of the main character, Ruth, as her father's Alzheimer's disease progresses. The novel deals with the disease with grace and shows how Ruth was able to make peace with the people that surrounded her.

    Told in short glimpses from Ruth's point of view, Goodbye, Vitamin, begins the day after Christmas. Ruth is at her parents' house for the first Christmas in a while since she just broke up with her fiance, Joel, after he cheated on her. Ruth's mother convinces her to stay with her parents for a year so that she can look after her father, Howard, who's suffering from Alzheimer's. She tries to convince her brother, Linus, to join them, but he refuses. Linus' view of his father is pretty negative because of Howard's alcoholism and the affair he had after Ruth went off to college.

"It's a terminal disease, all the literature keeps saying. 'But isn't everything terminal?' is what I say to nobody, out loud."

    Ruth is contacted by Howard's old TA, Theo, and they come up with a plan for Howard to teach fake classes at the university he used to work at without the dean knowing or Howard finding out that his job isn't real. This is successful for a while, but the dean discovers them during an educational horseback riding trip and confronts them. Howard is angry and embarassed and doesn't talk to Ruth or Theo for a week.

    Just a little while later, Ruth's world is flipped onto its side when she discovers divorce papers in a drawer and realizes her father was having another affair with one of his students, Joan. As Howard's Alzheimer's progresses, Joan calls, concerned that Howard can't remember her anymore. Ruth's mother finds out and is understandably humiliated and horrified that her husband cheated on her again.

    Over time, Howard's relationships with his family members improve and the family prepares for the later stages of his disease by "baby-proofing" the house together. The November after Ruth initially moved back in with her parents, Joel calls her and tells her that Kristin, the woman who Joel cheated with, is pregnant. Ruth, desperate for a distraction, calls Theo and goes to a bar with him. They end up spending the night hanging out at a park and watch the sunrise on a bench.

"What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers. That the reasons we can care for one another can have nothing to do with the person cared for. That it has only to do with who we were around that person- what we felt about that person."

    I have to admit that I wasn't super fond of this book at the beginning. It didn't feel smooth or coherent. I think most of that has to do with the diary-entry format that Goodbye, Vitamin is written in, but I would've liked the book a lot more if that hadn't been the case. The end of the story was really beautiful though, and I felt myself racing through the last 20 pages or so as Ruth cataloged her memories with Howard. 

"'Hello, water,' you said, holding the glass against the moonlight and shaking the pills, like they were dice you were ready to roll, in your other hand. 'Goodbye, vitamin.'"

    One thing I did enjoy was the humor of this book. I really saw myself in Ruth when she recorded her sarcastic thoughts and one-liners.

"What a ridiculous person I am."

"But all I can smell is hamburgers, or cows on their way to becoming hamburgers. America."

"The sausage topping looks to be spelling HI, like maybe the pizza maker heard the desperation in my voice and wanted to send me an encouraging message."

    Overall, it was a pretty incredible read. Rachel Khong's writing is beautiful and bittersweet, and the unconventional story she told was equally heartwarming.

Rating: 4/5