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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Gut wrenching and courageous. This is not a fun read but I think it’s an important one. I debated on 4 vs 5 stars for this and will err for 5 given the courage to write this unflinching account.
challenging
emotional
sad
fast-paced
not rating because i didn't like it but i had to read it for class anyway so it's not like i would have chosen to read it otherwise. it is captivating in the way that a stranger's brutally honest blog or diary would be but it's not a great book; there is no resolution, it's just page after page of intense pain. so i guess that it is well-written enough to transmit that pain from the author's daily life since this tragedy, but the reader gets nothing out of it except a fraction of understanding that it is painful to lose one's entire family. i don't want to judge because it's a horrible situation but since the author does nothing but indulge her pain for the entirety of the book (and apparently for all the years since the tsunami?) i can't help but wonder what her life might be like if she focused outward at least some of the time, (zero percent of the book is spent acknowledging that thousands of other people also died or were affected by the tsunami), or if she didn't have the financial luxury of wallowing for at least six months, maybe longer, without working at all and of owning an empty house that nobody lives in for years.
What can I say about this short, heart-breaking memoir? For any mother with young children to willingly delve into this book is an act of bravery, because Deraniyagala describes unflinchingly her own loss, and (for me, at least), it was impossible not to empathize and imagine this same type of tragedy being visited upon my precious family. Two things were salient to me as I read this book. One was how materially privileged Deraniyagala must have been; for she was able to hide out in mourning for months and months, even leaving her London home unlived in, untouched, un-rented for four years before she could bring herself to visit it. Most people would have to return to their homes and live in them and pay bills and other mundane things, despite such heart-rending loss. The other thing that stuck with me strongly was how much I wanted her to move on--- not to forget her husband and children, but to open herself to life again, to move forward, to make space to love other people. It doesn't seem as if she has.
“I cringe to be bereft in a way that cannot be imagined”
This memoir is raw, unfiltered, and reflective of the most unfathomable of losses. The author tells briefly of the horrifying event which took her parents, her husband, her two children, and her best friend from her in an instant. While detailing the pain, the shock, the desire to die now, rather than face the rest of her new life as her old one was torn from her, she pieces together bits and pieces of the life she lost. She details slow Sunday mornings, sitting in her parent’s kitchen, the beginning of her love story, and the birth of her children, reclaiming the memories she shied away from in her grief.
This book is not for us, it’s for her. I didn’t find it to be particularly engrossing, and sometimes I was lost in the thread of time - but I think it reflects her grief. Just a sea of pain, without end.
This memoir is raw, unfiltered, and reflective of the most unfathomable of losses. The author tells briefly of the horrifying event which took her parents, her husband, her two children, and her best friend from her in an instant. While detailing the pain, the shock, the desire to die now, rather than face the rest of her new life as her old one was torn from her, she pieces together bits and pieces of the life she lost. She details slow Sunday mornings, sitting in her parent’s kitchen, the beginning of her love story, and the birth of her children, reclaiming the memories she shied away from in her grief.
This book is not for us, it’s for her. I didn’t find it to be particularly engrossing, and sometimes I was lost in the thread of time - but I think it reflects her grief. Just a sea of pain, without end.
This book breaks your heart over and over, into a million pieces and there is no way to put it back together. There is strength and survival but a constant loss and sadness. It was beautifully written.
How to review this book on it's merits as a work of memoir alone and not on the author's incredibly tragic circumstance? Sonali loses her husband, both children, and parents to the Dec 26 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. This memoir goes into what she experienced that day, in the years afterwards, and also into what her life was like prior to their deaths. My only qualm was I wished she added more about her journey afterwards--it's clear she went into a spiral, but she doesn't really go into detail about how she got out of that spiral.
Relentless. Ugly. Unnerving. And deeply beautiful. Deraniyagala’s exploration of insurmountable and nonlinear grief reveals the complexity of sorrow and joy and the ways in which they are intertwined. I sobbed uncontrollably while clutching my sleeping one year old until the very last word.