This line of prophetic (and delicious!) wisdom comes from 15-year-old Grace Manning who uniquely compares her life to the making of pancakes throughout the novel. Grace is an average teenage girl: her father ran off, she lives with her mother and slightly older twin sister, she has a volunteer job at the local nursing home, she has a crush on her best friend, and she’s not sure what she believes in. What Grace is sure of is her love of volunteering at the nursing home, especially because of Mr. Sands, a sarcastic, intelligent, smart-mouth old man who has become a close friend. What Grace originally doesn’t know about Mr. Sands is that he has Lou Gehrig’s disease and his condition is worsening every day. To Mr. Sands, dignity is everything, and ending up like a potato with no ability to move or act on his thoughts certainly does not fall into that category.
Enter Grace. Mr. Sands asks Grace the one question she was never prepared for: “Grace, I need you to help me die.” No one would suspect young, innocent Grace of playing a part in old, sickly Mr. Sands’ death. The secret question, of which no one knows, stays in the back of Grace’s mind as she goes on her with her life until she finally makes her decision.
God is in the Pancakes by Robin Epstein is a tender and gripping novel about how we come to terms with the decisions we make in life. The pancake motif is creatively and effectively used throughout the novel, adding an extra layer to it. While there is a clear moralistic undertone to the book, Epstein does an unexpectedly great job of objectively addressing these important issues without being preachy.
What would you do?
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