Very emotional read. I loved the unique handling of the theme and the writers style. I can see why this was such a well liked novel.

Goodbye, Vitamin tells a heartbreaking story of the impact of Alzheimer’s on both the individual afflicted and those who love that individual. Khong accurately depicts the effects of Alzheimer’s on the brain and how scary those effects are to everyone involved. She also includes some interesting information on how the disease was named which I enjoyed learning.

Thank you HHC & Netgalley for the ARC. I really enjoyed this book through the happy and the sad, which happens everyday in our lives. The story was written very well and like how the characters fully developed. I will for sure be recommending this to my reading friend & and family.

I was not a big fan of this book. I was excited to read it, but I quickly became bored. It's the story of a daughter dealing with her father's dementia. We get into some of the weeds of what's going on as well as the past.

The book is set up as dated letters. But my problem was that the story just didn't flow. It was very random, and my boredom led me to forget character names. It reminded me a lot of Chemistry by Weike Wang, which I also did not like. The writing style and stream-of-consciousness nothingness were very similar.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC, for which I have given an honest and unbiased review*

Smart and impressive work. Looking forward to what comes next

I read this shortly before reading Sally Rooney’s novel, and the two have linked together in my mind as refreshing, insightful, and true takes on what it means to be a young woman in today’s world — in the context of family, sexuality, heritage, career expectations, all of it. This was a bit less propelling than Rooney’s novel, perhaps because of the confines of its hyper localized setting, but it stuck with me nonetheless, and I loved it.

My Review: 3.5
Goodbye, Vitamin explores the experiences a young woman endures as she heads home to help her father who’s suffering ‘memory lapses’, aka dementia. In actuality, she’s helping her mother mentally and emotionally deal with the slow loss of her husband’s memory. She has convinced herself she is to blame by cooking with aluminum pans over the course of their marriage.

What makes this book unique, and not like any other child dealing with Alzheimer’s stricken parents, is that this book offers a good amount of humor. Khong takes slices of life that are odd but true. She writes about things that we all see but describes them with wit and insight. A serendipitous book moment happened right after I read this. One of the characters mentions that he always sees baby socks on the ground around town. I was thinking that this was peculiar thing to see, however the next day I saw a set of baby socks in a puddle on my way into Costco. Funny, right?

Ruth, the POV we hear throughout the book, feels as though she needs to fix everything for her parents as she can’t fix herself. She’s reeling after a breakup and is lost. She teams up with a colleague of her father that will enable him to teach a college class once again, giving him a new lease on life. How this fake class manages to meet on campus, completely unbeknownst to the college deans and higher ups, was delightful.

This is a quick, heartwarming read and I’m sure many will enjoy it.

I loved this book! I thought it was a going to be a huge tearjerker, but don't be scared off by that - it really doesn't tug on the heart strings too badly. I really connected with the characters. The structure of the book, with the present day diaries interspersed with past diaries, was genius. I have been recommending this far and wide!

A somewhat amusing tale of a family dealing with the onset of Alzheimer's in the father.

I applaud Rachel Khong for an inspiring, often humorous look at caring for an elderly parent. We should all aspire to be a Ruth when the time comes.

Goodbye Vitamin is what I was hoping for in Jenni Attenberg's All Grown Up or Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton. The story it tells is wholly different, but the tone is similar AND it made me feel connected to the character in a way that the aforementioned titles failed to. This is the story of Ruth who returns to her parents' home for a year following her father's Alzheimer's diagnosis and her own break=up. Her father shares memories he took down of Ruth as a small child. Goodbye Vitamin lays down the moments of this year spent with her parents in a similar fashion, noting down moments of dis-remembering,

Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan for providing me an advanced ecopy of the book. This review is solely my opinion.
3.5 stars, rounded up.
To this baby boomer reviewer, this book was like Still Alice (Lisa Genova) except instead of following the Alzheimer's patient, it was narrated by the millennial daughter whose dad has Alzheimer’s. As Narrator Ruth says, “’I’m selfish,’ I started to say. I stopped, realize that saying so was, itself, pretty selfish.” (This reviewer did not just say all millennials are selfish. I’m just pointing out that the narrator might need to continue her life journey to a place of continuing personal growth ; )
The writing is conversational in style, like diary entries. Once in a while it just didn’t work. “The smell of ironing is a smell I love. The iron travels down the sleeve, like a ship on a shining river.” Just awkward, but this is the exception. The casual style annoyed me at first, but I grew used to it and felt it helped express the frustrations of Ruth and give insights into her character.
There are delightful touches of wry humor peppered throughout Goodbye, Vitamin. Ruth says she is in a similar boat to her best friend – the unmarried and careerless boat. “Which is more like a canoe.” Running into an old high school friend, Ruth writes, “She has children now. They share names with hurricanes – I don’t know if it is intentional or what. ‘This is Katrina and this is Sandy,’ she introduces. The children are four and eight, and even so young, their expressions look overcast.”
The story moves forward more at the midway point, uncovering previously hidden family dynamics. May 21st records a sad conversation between mom and daughter. Mom asks why Ruth didn’t visit more. Ruth thinks, “I didn’t want my fears confirmed. It was less terrifying this way: not helping you, not saving you, just leaving you all alone.” Mom quietly says she didn’t think this was how having a daughter would be. “She removes her gloves and hands them to me, all without saying a word. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, quietly, leaving me to finish the dishes.” Khong says So much by saying so little.
Ruth’s dad had kept a notebook about the funny/ cutesy things she said or did as she was growing up. Professor dad describes his parenting joy, “You are so happy to be learning to read. Today I thought of what I would give to have time just stop here. You’re out of my league. I’m waiting for the day you’ re going to leave me. I’d give: All the money I’ve got...That special silver dollar your grandfather gave me and said would be worth $3oo,000 by the time you were in college. Any of it, all of it, just to keep you here.” Ruth’s notebook expresses her feelings and tells the family story in her single, 30-something trying to find her way, way. After she reads the note dad wrote 20+ years ago, Ruth seems to mellow. She records the goofy things dad does with more kindness.

Alzheimers, cruel and insidious.

How do you tell a story of a parent who is physically healthy but cognitively no longer capable of working, doesn't recognize family members, doesn't adhere to societal norms? It is heartbreaking. Goodbye, Vitamin, a debut novel by Rachel Khong, walks this razor fine line with humor and grace to tell this story.

Ruth Young arrived at her parents home at her mothers request just after Christmas, jobless, newly broken up with her fiancé. She finds her father Howard has been leaving his pants in trees, her mother Annie views everything as a potential culprit. As the reality of her fathers Alzheimers sets in, the gravity of his condition, Ms Khong's writing really shines. She does a masterful job navigating the loss, anger, tenderness, and vulnerability to make such a difficult subject 'readable'. Most of all I found so much of this relatable, and that is the books greatest strength.

I received an advanced reader copy (eGalley) from Henry Holt & Company through NetGalley. This review reflects my honest and unbiased opinions.

Goodbye, Vitamin. Goodbye! I yell louder and wave more frantically, in case it isn’t clear: Goodbye! No, I won’t see you later. Go find another reader, one who will appreciate you!

Yep, I had to head to the shed and drag out the old Complaint Board. It’s been collecting cobwebs, which is a good thing because it means that recently I’ve been reading a lot of books I love.

I’m in the minority here. Most people liked this book about a daughter, Ruth, returning home to care for her demented dad. It is well-written and pretty innocuous. The book just didn’t work for me. Both the voice and the content bugged me—no, “bugged” is too mild a word. The book grated on my nerves. When that happens, there is little hope of a love affair.

(If you loved the book, skip this review because it will probably annoy you.)

Complaint Board

I say toe-may-doe, you say toe-maud-o. When you come right down to it, it’s mostly a matter of style. Some people tuned right in to this book. They liked the writing style, which I found self-conscious and too precious. I just didn’t like the way the story was told.

Nope, we would never be friends. I felt zero connection with the narrator. I mean zilch. I think it’s because she didn’t talk about her feelings much, if at all. Nor was there any introspection.

Kids say the damnedest things! . . . . But so? Yes, I’m being anti-Hallmarky here. Throughout the book, there are journal entries from Ruth’s dad, documenting all the adorable things Ruth said as a kid. Ah, yes, isn’t that clever and cute. But it adds nothing to the story. Okay, so I remember writing down all the cute things my kids said, and it’s a kick to reread them. However, I will not just stick them randomly into a novel.

I don’t want to hear weird, random facts in the middle of a story. It’s like the author went to a book called “Weird, Random Facts,” grabbed a bunch, and plopped them into the story here and there. What? If the author had thrown the facts into a non-fiction essay, that would have been fine, but I didn’t appreciate them here. They seemed unrelated and out of place, and they detracted from the story. Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she wanted to juxtapose some facts against the sad reality—like maybe it was a way that Ruth coped with the sadness of her dad’s condition—but I just wasn't feeling it.


Nope, don’t want to hear descriptions of dreams, either. It doesn’t happen often, but it still annoyed me.

And nope, I also don’t want to hear interesting but unrelated observations on life. I know I’m being picky, and those who love this book no doubt appreciated these life observations, but I couldn’t get over thinking that they sounded like little thoughts the writer had written down throughout her life, a normal and noble activity that writers indulge in. Again, I thought the author plopped them, like the kid cutenesses and the random facts, into this story randomly. (This is just what I thought. I can’t help that I thought this—so trolls, please don’t attack me.)

Hold your horses! (While I take a car ride in my pajamas.) Okay, these two things (horsebacking riding, and later, a car ride in PJs) are not related in any way but both really drove me nuts. Super super minor, and neither activity hardly took up any space—but they go on my Complaint Board anyway.

Okay, horses first. Ruth and her buds arranged for her dad to teach a fake college course, because he no longer was allowed to teach a real class. This was very sweet. (Seriously, I did think it was sweet.) Someone got the bright idea to hold one of the classes on horseback because the subject of that particular class was the Pony Express. In the very next paragraph, there goes dad and the crew riding horses.

Wait a minute. Come on, how many people do you know who have instant access to a bunch of horses? And if they did have access, there should have been at least one or two transitional paragraphs to get them to the horses—if they happen to live anywhere near a horseback riding facility in the first place. I don’t know about you, but there’s not one in my ‘burb that I know of. And I don’t know one adult (who isn’t totally into horses) who ever just goes horseback riding, all la-dee-da.

Here’s how it goes:

“But wouldn’t it be educational to have class on horseback? we suggest to Dad. He agrees happily.

Very next sentence:

On horseback, Dad attempts to shout educational details about the Pony Express.”

And as an aside, because I just can’t resist complaining about the whole horse scene, here is part of the next paragraph:

“Some shit falls out of its butt and we avoid it.”

Relevance? Was this really an image we needed? And surely this added nothing to the story—we don’t need to know about a horse pooping, sorry. I’m assuming the writer is trying to be funny. I just wasn’t laughing. Bathroom jokes aren’t my favorite thing anyway.

To make matters even more unbelievable, they happen to run into the unsympathetic department chairman, who also happens to be horseback riding at the very same place on the very same day at the very same time. Ludicrous ludicrous ludicrous. (I know I have to stop talking about horses, especially since the big beasts only took up a couple of pages. And how can I be critical of the writer adding random facts when I digress and can’t shut up?)

Okay, onto the pajamas, which are a pretty anti-climactic follow-up to the horse manure. I don’t have a lot to say about the pajamas, just that there was a logistical problem. Ruth’s friend Bonnie was in her pajamas. The next paragraph starts with “She got in the car and I drove.”

They travel all over the place. Maybe it’s common for people to go on trips in their pajamas? So yes, I could be getting a little too nit-picky here. It just seemed like she should have had Bonnie go in and change into clothes first—the editor in me would have been a lot happier.

(In a book I loved, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, there was a guy who ran around town in PJs. That scene made my Complaint Board, too. So see, I’m not just picking on this book. Or maybe I just have a problem with people running around outside in their pajamas. Very possible.)

As I said, this book seemed to resonate with most people. And I will say that I was totally seduced by the first sentence:

“Tonight a man found Dad’s pants in a tree that was lit with still-hanging Christmas lights.”

Unfortunately, the seduction ended there. For me this book was a hard vitamin to swallow.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

I am glad that I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of Goodbye, Vitamin. I found it an interesting read. I think the author did a great job with the complex family dynamics in this book. I appreciated the humor, particularly loving the father’s journal entries from Ruth’s childhood. Sadly, the reversal of roles was less humorous. I liked that the book was limited to one “year in the life”; I did not want to “witness” the inevitable decline in Howard’s health and how it would affect the family. I was happy that the book was able to demonstrate mostly positive events in a difficult situation.

The title of Rachel Khong's pithy first novel, Goodbye, Vitamin (Henry Holt, digital galley) doesn't make sense until you read the book, and then it makes perfect sense. So do the neon-colored lemons floating on the cover. They're as unexpected as this darkly funny story in which a daughter tries to make sense of her life even as her beloved and brilliant father is losing his mind and memories. Ruth, a 30-year-old medical sonographer recently jilted by her fiance, returns home for Christmas, and her frustrated mother asks her to stay for a year and help out with her father. An admired history professor, Howard Young is on a forced leave of absence from teaching because of his dementia, and he knows what's going on -- except when he doesn't. Then he wanders off, throws plates against the wall, tosses pillows in the neighbor's pool.  In a chronological series of vignettes, Ruth narrates events, everything from fixing nutritious meals full of cruiciferous vegetables (Howard calls them "crucified'') to joining with Howard's grad students to convince him he's still teaching a seminar. Brief excerpts from the journal Howard kept when Ruth was a little girl add smiles and depth. It's a happy/sad story, heartfelt, semi-sweet. Not your usual summer book, perhaps, but one of my new favorites. "What imperfect carriers of love we are, and what imperfect givers.'' -- from On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever "Novel Summer''

I'd give this book 10 stars if I could. Definitely Top 5 best books I've read this year.

The subject of the book hits really close to home for me -- to the point I was almost dreading reading it. But Khong manages to make the Gordian knot of family relationships -- mixed-race, Asian, slightly estranged, family relationship plagued by infidelity, filial piety, and dementia -- truly, genuinely funny. It's the literary equivalent of walking a tightrope without a net, only you're also juggling while riding a flaming unicycle.
'Goodbye, Vitamin' could have devolved into a mushy, maudlin mess of cliches. Instead it manages to be as amusing as it is heart-wrenching.

Heartfelt and dryly hilarious, GOODBYE, VITAMIN takes readers into the life of Ruth for a year as she returns home at age 30 to help care for her father who is losing his memory. My heart ached for the entire family, but just as I was starting to descend into despair, all of a sudden there would be a phrase or scene so witty or shocking that I would find myself laughing out loud. Khong manages to write about a truly horrible situation, and one almost any of us could find ourselves in, with brevity,
brutal honesty, and hope.

GOODBYE, VITAMIN is written diary style, but also includes segments of a journal of Ruth's father about her as a child, and at times she is also writing TO her father. It was a delight to read about such identifiable and mundane moments (postal service-related fears, for example!) in the midst of the anguish over Alzheimer's.

There is grief in abundance in this book, but humor and heartwarming anecdotes and events balance it out. Highly, highly recommend. I can't wait to read more from Rachel Khong!