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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
This is a courageous telling of truth. Her thoughts are not pleasant. They don't have to be. I have seen a lot of written comments that she was mean, selfish, etc. I have no idea if these statements are true.
Many have also written that she didn't reach out to other survivors or talk about their pain. This is HER own personal story. It is not about altruism or sharing grief; she has been desperately trying to not feel anything since that day. Why do some need to negate pain and look for happy endings?
She is human. She has been a part of a tragic unthinkable event that most of us could never begin to fathom. She writes how everything is a memory of a life that was once and never will be again. In just reading her account of the everyday associations that trigger memories of a family, a normalcy, a life no longer recognizable, I was in awe of her honesty. She does not sugar coat her actions or her thoughts. She tells the truth. She could have lied and said I tried to save everyone or I have moved on but then she could have written a fiction novel too. This is honest raw grief and survival when you can't understand why you're still here. It would be the same grief as someone losing their entire family in a fire or a car accident. It is loss beyond what the human mind can fathom.
This book will stay with me forever. It opened my eyes to everything that holds a memory.
Graphic: Blood, Grief, Car accident
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent, Alcohol
Minor: Fatphobia, Stalking
On Boxing Day, 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her sons, her husband, and her parents. You know that tsunami, it killed over two hundred thousand people. But thinking on such a scale, it's beyond us to process each loss as individual. This story belongs to her family.
Wave is not the kind of work it's comfortable to rate. You might not trust me, sensing I'd feel guilty awarding less than five stars. But this is a book to remember, crucially human. And the stinging, graceful prose deserves acclaim.
You won’t find the read long. Deraniyagala doesn't dwell; the moments she shares matter. Not to say Wave is quick and easy. There is no flinching, she opens with innocence, the rush of waters, and her loss. But she keeps you in shock with her, and I found it possible to continue. From her base assumption she will suicide, she somehow lives and keeps living. She moves through years in pages, our part to witness as she achingly rebuilds relationship with each loved one, allowing herself to know them again in memory. Our part to realize this isn't a happy ending, it's love in reality.
There were confessions that surprised me into laughter, and moments the ugly became squirmingly familiar. There were problems I never considered, like how you make friends when it never seems the right time to bring up your most basic biography.
Some long time booksellers have told me they can’t bear to finish, or have found the book beautiful, but difficult to recommend. I won't dismiss their reactions, can't disagree; they are natural. We all have lost or will lose people we love, we share that, and yet our grief is our own. I don’t know where you are, can’t speak for how her story will take you. But if you feel able, I think you’ll be grateful Denaniyagala found the strength to share her family with us.
As for me, I'm still working through uncomfortable questions, and am uneasy for the day I might have some answers. Can I say those I love are part of who I am? Honestly? How well, generously, whole-heartedly do I live, knowing we're on call? And how would I live, if everything I've lived for was gone?
This review also appears on http://boxesofpaper.com/2013/03/29/review-from-shelterdowns-wave-by-sonali-deraniyagala/