Lisa Genova's books need to come with a thick stack of tissues because you know you're going to cry! The main character is a classical concert pianist who seems to think very well of himself. He's divorced his wife and hasn't spoken with his daughter in year. And then he get's ALS. The author provides great information on this horrible disease, making it understandable for those of us who don't have first hand knowledge. As one would expect, Richard, the pianist, is quite humbled by this disease. But I didn't expect what happened between him and his ex-wife to happen.
This book was a pretty quick read and yet I feel like the characters were actual people I knew. I mourned every loss of feeling that Richard had from his hands to his legs to his breath. If you're a Lisa Genova fan, you will enjoy this book.

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova is so poignant, so beautiful and heartfelt that I do not believe my review will do it justice. This novel is about Richard, a renowned concert pianist and how he deals with his diagnosis and illness of ALS. Karina, his estranged wife bravely becomes his caregiver, despite the fact that Richard was somewhat of a narcissist and that they had had a horrible marriage.
This is a novel about family, love, loss and forgiveness. I can't stop thinking about it. A must read! 5 beautiful stars!
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for giving me an advanced reader's copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: March 20, 2017
Do yourself a favor and put this on your to-read list NOW!
Every Note Played is Lisa Genova's book about a genius level musician diagnosed with ALS, his ex-wife, and his family close and distant.
I came into the book knowing nothing about ALS besides the "Ice Bucket Challenge". Genova made short work of that. She paints the picture of the mind of the patient and those around him in such an incredibly powerful way. I knew the characters, felt their joys and pains. I am sitting here typing this while sobbing.
It's a beautiful story about ALS, but I enjoyed the story more in the points it made about legacy. Apologizing and forgiving especially. It doesn't matter how painful or how long ago, it's never too late to fix the relationships around you.
I thought I loved Still Alice, but Every.Note Played is other-wordly in it's story and characters.
Thank you so much to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book has my heart and will have yours too!

I've read Lisa Genova's other novels and knew what to expect. This was more heartfelt for some reason for me, and I found myself crying at the end, big ugly sobs. We all know how her characters will find their end once you pick up and read a few chapters, but this one did me in.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley.

This is another success from Lisa Genova. The book focuses on a highly-acclaimed pianist who develops ALS. It follows his decline in chilling detail. Although the reality of the story can be very depressing at times, the details and descriptions are informative. Genova captures the effects of the disease on its victim, his family, and his caretakers. It is a very powerful story.

This book makes you feel like you know the characters and feel their emotions. The horrific decline of a healthy person is felt in every way, and the emotional adjustments to everyone in contact with it was told very em-pathetically.

We all remember the ice bucket challenge to raise funds for ALS. Lisa Genova has written an exceptionally informative and captivating novel that tells the story of a renowned concert pianist who is diagnosed with ALS. In Every Note Played the reader follows this man, Richard, as he slowly looses the ability to play the piano, to use his arms and legs and eventually his muscles for breathing. His story, and also that of his family, is riveting and upsetting. I now have a deeper empathy for those afflicted with ALS and pray that a cure can be found soon. I highly recommend this book. For fans of Still Alice, this is another excellent novel by Lisa Genova.
.

I picked Lisa Genova's "Every Note Played" because it was a deeply personal story for me, since my Father had ALS. He passed away in 2000, and I wanted to see if this book would show the advancements in treatment and improvement in aids for people living with this most horrible disease. The book did so much more, as I continued to draw parallels in the lives of Richard, Karina and Grace and my family. The book is beautifully written, and very honest. Even though it stirred up many emotions, I am so glad I read it, and I feel others without my history will be glad they read it too. Thank you NetGalley for giving me an ARC to read and review.

Every Note Played is a beautifully written book that tugs on the heartstrings. It is obvious that Lisa Genova has done her research about the debilitating and deadly disease of ALS. She manages to intertwine a story of a broken marriage where each one blames the other for breaking the marriage and finds no fault within themselves. When ALS strikes one of them and the other is tasked with caring for them as the end draws near, they just may find who really is to blame and maybe they can forgive before it is too late.

A heartfelt insight about the ravages of ALS. You expect the ending, yet still are surprised. It gave me hope that humans are better people than we sometimes think.

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova. It is the mark of a great author who can take three basically unlikely characters and bring you to a point of tears over their trials and tribulations and endings. Learned quite a bit about ALS that was previously unknown to me. Also some theories of classical music which has it's own healing effects.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Another virtuoso performance by Lisa Genova. This book, about a concert pianist who contracts ALS, is the most difficult to read of her books. Halfway through I wasn’t sure that I could finish it. The disease is progressive and devastating.
The book then shifted to a family dynamic involving forgiveness and healing from past hurts. The ending of the book is very powerful.
Having watched a good friend succumb to ALS, I know how devastating the disease is. Lisa Genova did an especially good job of capturing on paper the slow and awkward speaking of a person with advanced ALS.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a prepublication version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved Lisa Genova’s other books. I devoured them. I found this book to be good but for me it didn’t stack up to her other novels. Perhaps this is due to the fact that over the past few months I have read another book about ALS and watched a phenomenal very emotional documentary. This made it hard for me to get into the book and at one point I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get through another book on this topic. Then, about a quarter of the way through the book, it started to take on a personality of its own and I did want to keep reading. It was based on an interesting premise - what would we do for our ex-spouse in a dire situation? In general I found the book and the interplay between Karina and Richard and between Richard and his other caretakers to be very believable. As always, in this author’s books, emotions are real and raw. I just didn’t find this book as compelling as her prior successes.

Thank you to Netgalley and Gallery/Scout Press for providing me an early release of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a beautifully well written book, I read it in one day. Very touching perspective of ALS from both the patients and caregivers side, but also about the power of forgiveness. The characters were so strong and well rounded, and yet had that tragic human touch to them that made you want to cry with them. By the end I was left spent crying in my Kleenex, touched to my soul, and felt a better person for reading this little gem.

Richard has always been a disappointment to his father. Why couldn't he be a jock like his brothers? Even his international success as a concert pianist fails to win his dad's praise. In college, Richard met his wife Karina, a gifted pianist in her own right. Their relationship is plagued by Richard's need to be the best, and Karina gives up a promising career to be wife to Richard and mother to their daughter. After 13 years, the couple divorces, and neither is sad to be rid of the other. When Richard is diagnosed with ALS, though, they become the most unlikely of couples again. Unflinchingly real and beautifully written, this story will grab you by the heart and hold you until the final page. .

First, I want to thank Lisa Genova, Simon and Schuster, And Netgalley for providing me with this book so I may bring you this review.

Every Note Played by Best Selling Author Lisa Genova was an extremely emotionally difficult read for me. So many times I needed tissues to get through a scene. Like the main character in this book Richard my cousin also had ALS and choose to hid it. I didn’t find out til he passed. Lisa did an incredible and shared a beautiful story going into detail of what an ALS patient goes through medically, mentally, emotionally, how it effects relationships around him and the death of ones career. I am very grateful she wrote this book for those who are not educated on this disease. Now we have more compassion on what patients, caregivers and their families go through.

It is difficult to review Every Note Played, as difficult as it was to read it. In brief, it’s the story of a brilliant pianist, not long divorced from his wife, who is diagnosed with ALS, which, as everyone knows, is a death sentence. The story plays out the coda of Richard’s life, the interlude of his ex-wife Karina’s life as she takes care of him in his last, devastating months of constant decline, and the overture to her new life as a jazz pianist.

I had to put this book aside many times as I was so vividly reminded of the nine-month decline of my father, who died in 1968 of pancreatic cancer, the death of a former colleague from ALS, and the serious terminal cancer that is eating away at my dearest friend - a friendship of 51 years in duration. Death is a serious business. While no one really knows when they will die, we pray that our deaths not be as painful and dominating as Richard’s fictional one, and my father’s and friends’ were are and are - an inexorable counting of the days.

Yet painful as this story is, it is, with the terrible circumstances stripped away, a love and reconciliation and discovery story of enormous significance. Lisa Genova has created memorable characters down to those who appear only once or twice. The story could be non-fiction, her research and detailed characterizations are that believable. I will not forget this book. I recommend it highly.

I am grateful to Ms. Genova, NetGalley, and the publisher for providing me an advance review copy of this outstanding book.

I'm no concert pianist but having played the piano since I was 12 years old, I completely understand the fear of not being able to play the piano anymore or crochet or paint.

Every Note Played opens with Richard at his last concert and from there the story moves forward, between following Richard as ALS increasingly claims his body and Karina's life, interspersed with back flashes from when they were both at Curtis. The pacing of the story has a meandering, kind of exploratory feel to it when it comes to Richard's and Karina's thoughts of both the past and what lies ahead. There's no surviving ALS and the readers know that Richard is not going to get any better but despite this grim reality, I couldn't drum up enough sympathy for Richard knowing he's been a horrible husband to Karina and a very absent father to his only child, Grace. The true beauty of this book lies in how Karina, Grace and Richard find the ability to forgive one another through the difficulties of living with ALS and later on, the freedom to finally move on and pursue your dreams.

I really appreciate the amount of work that the author, Lisa Genova, put into this book and it showed especially through Richard's struggles with ALS. It's like you, the reader, is right there in the den in Richard's body or in Karina's or in Bill's. Lisa Genova successfully showed and with great detail exactly what ALS is all about. Because I couldn't put down this amazing read, I had a nightmare about being paralyzed and that it started with a tendonitis-like pain in my left thumb, which in real life, I was experiencing pain in my left thumb when I stretched it out and away from my hand. The pain in my left thumb is gone now after 2 days of not using my thumb to left click on the track pad of my work computer, thank God it wasn't anything serious.

In conclusion, if you want to know more about ALS without having to read lengthy medical texts, with excellent, well-developed characters, this is the book for you.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I went through an entire box of tissues on this one. This story is raw, painfully and beautifully told. Most people still don't fully understand the devastation the disease ALS strikes on the person and the family. Richard tore my heart in two. I understand his loss in the ability to no longer be able to do the one thing you have been passionate about your whole life. Karina showed such strength helping him even after all they been through in their horrible marriage. This is hands down a must read.

I wanted to read this book because of the subject ALS. The story had a good flow in telling how it all started. I’ve known a few people that suffered from ALS and know everyone’s journey is different but this gave one “family’s” story. There were a few surprises in the reason for the divorce and how they all acted.