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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
This is an extremely well written but a supremely depressing book, but of course, such are the circumstances the author finds herself in.
I can see why the author had to write this book as part of a healing process, I could see the beautiful life she shared with her family and the pain she feels as she realizes over and over again that the family is no more.
But I really did not understand why I should be reading it - I only read it because the prose was beautiful. I really could have skipped this book and not missed much in my life.
If you have experienced loss of a family member, this book could be a trigger, so be warned.
I can see why the author had to write this book as part of a healing process, I could see the beautiful life she shared with her family and the pain she feels as she realizes over and over again that the family is no more.
But I really did not understand why I should be reading it - I only read it because the prose was beautiful. I really could have skipped this book and not missed much in my life.
If you have experienced loss of a family member, this book could be a trigger, so be warned.
Check out my review:
http://www.shannonsbookbag.blogspot.com/2013/11/wave-deraniyagala.html
http://www.shannonsbookbag.blogspot.com/2013/11/wave-deraniyagala.html
When natural disaster strikes we read the papers and watch the news coverage with laden hearts. Our minds have trouble comprehending the devastation, the loss of life, the emotional shock of these horrific events. Unless local or personal, all too quickly my life moves on, forgetting the ongoing grief, destruction and loss that continues to plague these people.
What compelled me to read Sonali Deraniyagala's Wave? Why would I choose to read this personal, gut wrenching account? Sonali Deraniyagala survived the Sri Lanka Tsunami in December, 2004. She survived but her husband, Steve, and her sons, Vikram and Malli, and her parents, did not. I wanted to comprehend in some small way, how someone survives something like this and is brave enough to share her story.
Wave was published in 2013. This gap between the tsunami to publication makes sense when you read Deraniyagala's story. Deraniyagala takes us back to December 26, 2004 and with vivid imagery relates what she remembers of the day. She and her family are readying to leave the Yala, a cherished family vacation spot and beautiful National Park located on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. Her friend Orlantha is standing in Sonali's hotel doorway chatting when she sees the wave. "Oh my God, the sea's coming in." Sonali didn't find this remarkable, or even alarming. It was just the curl of a wave. "But you couldn't usually see breaking waves from our room". Within minutes, it became apparent that this was not normal. Without conscious thought or understanding Sonali and her husband knew they must get the boys and get out. They scoop them up and flee so quickly that Sonali does not take time to warn her parents in the room next door.
This first chapter is brutal as we are privy to Sonali's thoughts as she is churned in the waters of the tsunami. We feel her confusion, turmoil, disbelief, the fear of what is happening. Fleeting thoughts of her children as she tumbles through brown water Vik and Malli, I thought again. I can't let myself die here in whatever this is, My boys." Miraculously there is a branch hanging over the water and Sonali is able to grab this small piece of tree that proves to be her survival. She's on the ground, disoriented, battered, covered in mud. Men find her and take her to a the national park's museum building where she sits on a bench. She cannot focus, she cannot understand what has happened to her. Where is her family? She does not dare to speak, to acknowledge anyone or anything. The next day she goes to the hospital and it is here that she knows she must face the possibility that her family is dead. But she cannot. If she doesn't talk, if she doesn't see the bodies, if she can hide, it might still not be true.
The balance of the book is the account of the ensuing years. Life does not just go on. Her life is filled with despair and suicidal thoughts. More than six years go by before Sonali can bear to remember her family and take heart in the joys of their lives.
Sonali Deraniyagala has written a heart rending memoir, hopefully as much of a way through grief for her as a chronicle for us. It reminds me yet again of the power of love and family and the fragility of life.
What compelled me to read Sonali Deraniyagala's Wave? Why would I choose to read this personal, gut wrenching account? Sonali Deraniyagala survived the Sri Lanka Tsunami in December, 2004. She survived but her husband, Steve, and her sons, Vikram and Malli, and her parents, did not. I wanted to comprehend in some small way, how someone survives something like this and is brave enough to share her story.
Wave was published in 2013. This gap between the tsunami to publication makes sense when you read Deraniyagala's story. Deraniyagala takes us back to December 26, 2004 and with vivid imagery relates what she remembers of the day. She and her family are readying to leave the Yala, a cherished family vacation spot and beautiful National Park located on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. Her friend Orlantha is standing in Sonali's hotel doorway chatting when she sees the wave. "Oh my God, the sea's coming in." Sonali didn't find this remarkable, or even alarming. It was just the curl of a wave. "But you couldn't usually see breaking waves from our room". Within minutes, it became apparent that this was not normal. Without conscious thought or understanding Sonali and her husband knew they must get the boys and get out. They scoop them up and flee so quickly that Sonali does not take time to warn her parents in the room next door.
This first chapter is brutal as we are privy to Sonali's thoughts as she is churned in the waters of the tsunami. We feel her confusion, turmoil, disbelief, the fear of what is happening. Fleeting thoughts of her children as she tumbles through brown water Vik and Malli, I thought again. I can't let myself die here in whatever this is, My boys." Miraculously there is a branch hanging over the water and Sonali is able to grab this small piece of tree that proves to be her survival. She's on the ground, disoriented, battered, covered in mud. Men find her and take her to a the national park's museum building where she sits on a bench. She cannot focus, she cannot understand what has happened to her. Where is her family? She does not dare to speak, to acknowledge anyone or anything. The next day she goes to the hospital and it is here that she knows she must face the possibility that her family is dead. But she cannot. If she doesn't talk, if she doesn't see the bodies, if she can hide, it might still not be true.
The balance of the book is the account of the ensuing years. Life does not just go on. Her life is filled with despair and suicidal thoughts. More than six years go by before Sonali can bear to remember her family and take heart in the joys of their lives.
Sonali Deraniyagala has written a heart rending memoir, hopefully as much of a way through grief for her as a chronicle for us. It reminds me yet again of the power of love and family and the fragility of life.
Lyrical, raw, a hands-on guide to the biggest grief imaginable, that is Wave. It’s a painful read, reminding us of our own brushes with pain and that more is possible. Yet, it’s a brave book. To peer up from the bottom of despair and claw to the top is excruciating. Author, Sonali Deraniyagala, made it through the worst and somehow survives.
I had to read this book a little bit at a time in the beginning because her heartbreak is very moving. The descriptions of all the many places her family went to were wonderful. I don't know how anyone survives such a devastating event, I am amazed at her resilience.
Wave is both a love letter to family and the confrontation of a tragedy; as if the author were sitting in a chair, handed paper and pen, and told to just...write. It is a painful recollection of that fateful day and the harrowing years of healing after. There is no break from sorrow, from her endless wanting and yearning for and confusion over what she had and lost. She didn't write this to serve us a sob story; she wrote it to recover what she could from the fragments that were left behind. She wrote it to scream at the top of her lungs that she had a wonderful, fulfilled life.
The most striking gift she gave me while reading this was the reassurance that there is nothing, really, in the end, more beautiful than a perfectly imperfect, messy, exciting, tedious, and hopeful ordinary life. A life full of routine and traditions; little things we tend to overlook amid a busy day of work, house chores, and get-togethers but what, ultimately, make up our world. It was a reminder, to me, to hold on to those moments and to, indeed, stop and smell the flowers. For one day, when it's gone, I will miss it. The chaos, the laughter, the plans...
The most striking gift she gave me while reading this was the reassurance that there is nothing, really, in the end, more beautiful than a perfectly imperfect, messy, exciting, tedious, and hopeful ordinary life. A life full of routine and traditions; little things we tend to overlook amid a busy day of work, house chores, and get-togethers but what, ultimately, make up our world. It was a reminder, to me, to hold on to those moments and to, indeed, stop and smell the flowers. For one day, when it's gone, I will miss it. The chaos, the laughter, the plans...
How do you survive the loss of your husband, two boys and your parents after a tsunami hits the hotel you are staying at in Sri Lanka? We all remember the disaster that struck Yala many years ago. This is the story of one survivor, and she shows us in this memoir, how the stories and memories of her family give her the "spark" to keep on living.
A book of grief and despair, and certainly a one-of-a-kind account of surviving the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, but losing your children, husband, and parents. Had me crying all the way through. But a celebrated book!
Read my full thoughts over at Read.Write.Repeat.
After losing her family in the 2004 tsunami, Deraniyagala sorts out her grief and memorializes her loved ones through this memoir.
After losing her family in the 2004 tsunami, Deraniyagala sorts out her grief and memorializes her loved ones through this memoir.