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erincataldi's review against another edition
4.0
A heart-wrenching memoir of loss, grief, guilt, and pain as a father re-counts the tragedy of losing his eight year old son. What was supposed to be a fun family trip soon turned into a nightmare when their youngest son drowned while kayaking on the Green River. Almost numb with pain, the author recounts with clarifying and insightful detail the emotions (or sometimes lack thereof) experienced by him, his wife, and their only remaining child. Spanning over the course of a few years, this memoir is a glimpse into the tragedy that many families experience everyday. A wonderful, but heart breaking memoir that beneficial for everyone to read. Not everyone experiences grief the same way and reading this will help readers with that cold hard fact.
jcpdiesel21's review against another edition
3.0
Gerson and his family have been through the emotional ringer with regard to the titular location's impact on their lives through the heartbreaking loss of a family member, and penning this book had to provide a much needed catharsis. While I certainly wouldn't classify this book as enjoyable, Gershon lets readers in on the pain that he experienced both in the immediate aftermath and for years afterward, providing an intimate look at the lingering effects of grief. A more intriguing approach would have brought wife Alison and son Julian into the fold to provide their points of view and different methods to heal afterward in greater detail instead of merely touching on them, resulting in the book feeling more complete and taking fewer tangents to fill the pages.
Thanks to the First to Read program for providing me with an ARC of this title.
Thanks to the First to Read program for providing me with an ARC of this title.
leleroulant's review against another edition
4.0
I received this as a ARC from LibraryThing.com. What does a cultural historian do after losing his eight year-old son to a rafting accident. He thoroughly analyzes the incident through all aspects from others in his current world facing devastating losses to writings of people such as Victor Hugo and Emily Dickinson, to happenings in his own family history.
When I realized this was a memoir and not a novel, I was not looking forward to reading it, thinking it was going to be a painful read. I was mistaken. While definitely painful at times, Gerson write so beautifully that I was mesmerized to the very end.
When I realized this was a memoir and not a novel, I was not looking forward to reading it, thinking it was going to be a painful read. I was mistaken. While definitely painful at times, Gerson write so beautifully that I was mesmerized to the very end.
browncharlotte18's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know what initially caused me to purchase this book. I'm not someone who opts to read memoirs unless they are required or gifted.
However, I still connected with this story and do understand the concept of the grief they faced. I've seen it in my own family through my aunt having another child years after losing her eldest child. In her circumstance, she also had another child to care for while going through her grief.
I've lost 2 grandparents, but I had time to grieve and accept their deaths long before it happened. Losing someone unexpectedly in an instant isn't comparable to watching someone's light dwindle out over months and years until they're just a shadow of what they once were.
Gerson's account of how his family processed the event in the days and weeks after the incident mirror the chaos I witnessed in my own life after my grandfather passed. People tended to come in and clutter my space and suffocate me when I just needed time to be alone to process the events.
The only issue I encountered in his recount is the cluttered and nonlinear way in which he told the story. It definitely can make the short book feel much longer than it is. By no means did that stall my immersion into this part of his life, though. It made it feel more real to me. Perhaps because I also have a similar way of interpreting and understanding the world: in ramblings and constantly looking for patterns and meaning in everything.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has experienced or is experiencing grief of any kind. Sometimes it does help to read about those who understand what you're going through.
However, I still connected with this story and do understand the concept of the grief they faced. I've seen it in my own family through my aunt having another child years after losing her eldest child. In her circumstance, she also had another child to care for while going through her grief.
I've lost 2 grandparents, but I had time to grieve and accept their deaths long before it happened. Losing someone unexpectedly in an instant isn't comparable to watching someone's light dwindle out over months and years until they're just a shadow of what they once were.
Gerson's account of how his family processed the event in the days and weeks after the incident mirror the chaos I witnessed in my own life after my grandfather passed. People tended to come in and clutter my space and suffocate me when I just needed time to be alone to process the events.
The only issue I encountered in his recount is the cluttered and nonlinear way in which he told the story. It definitely can make the short book feel much longer than it is. By no means did that stall my immersion into this part of his life, though. It made it feel more real to me. Perhaps because I also have a similar way of interpreting and understanding the world: in ramblings and constantly looking for patterns and meaning in everything.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has experienced or is experiencing grief of any kind. Sometimes it does help to read about those who understand what you're going through.
bolynne's review against another edition
4.0
I won this from a giveaway through Bookstr.
Seeing as this is a memoir, it was a little hard to rate, seeing as you can't really grade someone's tragedy.
I will say that I am glad to have had the chance to read it. I feel that this was a very insightful and would be helpful for people who have also been through this experience. It's not a super uplifting tale, but it is brutally honest.
Seeing as this is a memoir, it was a little hard to rate, seeing as you can't really grade someone's tragedy.
I will say that I am glad to have had the chance to read it. I feel that this was a very insightful and would be helpful for people who have also been through this experience. It's not a super uplifting tale, but it is brutally honest.
nickie184's review against another edition
4.0
This is a searing and well-written memoir. A bit of trouble with adding the narrative about the author's father, but otherwise, so very very good.
lisagray68's review against another edition
4.0
I got this as an Early Reviewer copy from Library Thing. I really wish I had looked at it closer; I did not realize it was a non-fiction memoir, I thought it was fiction. Having two pre-teen/teen kids myself, I find it very difficult to read a memoir about parents losing a child. I'm a therapist who has helped a few couples past this experience, and I'm well aware of the suffering; it's the kind of suffering that makes my husband MIGHTILY impatient with me when I just can't relax around any potential danger. It's just that once you are aware of the tenuous grip all of our kids hold on life, you can't become unaware of it. And part of what makes parenting work is being unaware of it, sometimes. Just sometimes. This book is so amazing and wonderful. I just almost couldn't take it, personally. But I'll be donating my copy to our local Bereaved Mother's Network, because I think so many of our local moms in that group will appreciate the beauty of this family's story, the way writing redeems the experience, tells the story, tells Owen's story. And also, I'm never letting my kids go river rafting.
koby's review against another edition
3.0
The author's 8 year old son, Owen, died on a rafting trip in Utah. Reading his memoir is a type of tithe of my emotional reserves to the altar of parenthood. I felt compelled to bear witness to his story of loss, which, of course, turns my mind to my own precious children. It's a sobering reminder of how fragile life is, how a tragedy happens in a moment.
It feels unseemly to comment on this book from a literary perspective, or in terms of "enjoyment," but some parts of this story fell flat for me. The author's feelings of himself as a father and the episode itself are tied into his own feelings for his father and childhood (naturally), so he explores a lot about his relationship with his dad. It doesn't always work, though, and I often didn't care about that relationship. There was a fair amount of the book dedicated to his dad's decline to cancer, and it just didn't fit quite right. While these may have been important episodes in how he made sense of the loss of his son, he didn't quite make it work for me as a reader.
It feels unseemly to comment on this book from a literary perspective, or in terms of "enjoyment," but some parts of this story fell flat for me. The author's feelings of himself as a father and the episode itself are tied into his own feelings for his father and childhood (naturally), so he explores a lot about his relationship with his dad. It doesn't always work, though, and I often didn't care about that relationship. There was a fair amount of the book dedicated to his dad's decline to cancer, and it just didn't fit quite right. While these may have been important episodes in how he made sense of the loss of his son, he didn't quite make it work for me as a reader.
posadafan's review against another edition
5.0
If I'd known what this book was about before I started, I never would have picked it up. It's a hard (painful) read.
But what a wonderful writer Stephane Gerson is. The multi-faceted illuminations, insights, etc. that come after a profound loss - he has captured them in such a thought-provoking and eloquently written way. I had to put the book down before the specific retelling of the event, and go back to it at a later time. Honestly, I'm shocked that people say this is "boring" - clearly it's not fast-paced or plot-driven, but the writing is so beautiful, deep and intelligent.
I thank the writer for his honesty. Wishing peace to him and his family.
But what a wonderful writer Stephane Gerson is. The multi-faceted illuminations, insights, etc. that come after a profound loss - he has captured them in such a thought-provoking and eloquently written way. I had to put the book down before the specific retelling of the event, and go back to it at a later time. Honestly, I'm shocked that people say this is "boring" - clearly it's not fast-paced or plot-driven, but the writing is so beautiful, deep and intelligent.
I thank the writer for his honesty. Wishing peace to him and his family.
claudiaamteixeira's review against another edition
4.0
Review:
https://enchantedbybookssite.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/disaster-falls-book-review/
https://enchantedbybookssite.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/disaster-falls-book-review/