One True Thing

“Romance fails us and so do friendships, but the relationship of parent and child, less noisy than all the others, remains indelible and indestructible, the strongest relationship on earth”   -Theodore Reik
One True Thing is a novel that made me think about the fragility of life.   One theme in this novel is death.   Death is always lurking in the shadows from the first pages of the story.   The entire plot is focused around the dying, death, and the impact of the death of Kate, the main character, on other characters.   This book teaches the reader you should never take someone for granted.   Ellen always said she never wanted her mother's life—the life of a homemaker.   Ellen has always dreamed of something bigger for her life and she had something bigger in New York until she came back to the small college town to take care of her sick mother.   When she does come home, she realizes how much work it takes to be a mother, wife, and run a household, and she gains a new respect for her mother.
Another theme is mother-daughter relationships.   The relationship between this mother and daughter is nothing more than the mother providing whatever the daughter needed.   Ellen, the daughter, never saw her mother as anything more than a mother—the person who gave birth to her, the person who raised her, made lunches and dinner, and the person who always had a perfect house.   Ellen didn't see her mother as anything more than an appliance sometimes.   Then, when Kate gets sick and Ellen comes home and spends a significant amount of time with her, Ellen realizes how interesting her mother is as person.   She got to know her mother more like a friend than a mother.   This theme taught me to appreciate my mother more because I had feelings about my mother similar to those of Ellen, but after reading this book, I will try to not just think of my mother as a mother, but more of a person.  
This novel didn't have many rhetorical devices, but allusions and discussions about many well-known...