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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read a book about a natural disaster
Deraniyagala has written a lovely, lyrical book about her husband and sons, who were killed in the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in December, 2004 (her parents were killed, too, and she writes about them but focuses on her husband and her boys). Her expression of her love and her loss is gorgeous. Mind you: this book is not about the tsunami. There are no statistics, there are no stories of other survivors; it's just Deraniyagala and her grief, and then Deraniyagala and her memories. She muddles through an unfathomable loss, and I can't even imagine how she's still standing.
Yet, I find myself giving the book just three stars. Why? Honestly, I didn't like the author. I feel for her, of course, and when the book ended I was glad to know that she had been able to process much of her grief. But there were times, early on, when I was floored by the way she responded to her loss; as the book went on, I was shocked that she didn't acknowledge these responses as inappropriate or horrifying. Take, for example, her terrorizing of the family that moved into her parents' home. She rang their doorbell and ran, played loud music outside their house, and called them at all hours, making ghostly noises, ignoring their please to just tell them what she wanted. She faced no apparent consequences for this and expressed no remorse within the pages of the book. She just seems to take it as her right to express her grief in any way she needed to, and those who were affected didn't matter. She needed help - grief counseling or a psychiatrist - but didn't seek it out, nor did her family find help for her. They just hid the knives. She doesn't reflect on this at all. There is nothing for grieving people to learn from; it's just 100% her experience, with nothing else here that doesn't relate specifically to her and her feelings.
Now, that's the book she wanted to write, and it's beautiful. It really is. But I can't say that I enjoyed it.
Deraniyagala has written a lovely, lyrical book about her husband and sons, who were killed in the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in December, 2004 (her parents were killed, too, and she writes about them but focuses on her husband and her boys). Her expression of her love and her loss is gorgeous. Mind you: this book is not about the tsunami. There are no statistics, there are no stories of other survivors; it's just Deraniyagala and her grief, and then Deraniyagala and her memories. She muddles through an unfathomable loss, and I can't even imagine how she's still standing.
Yet, I find myself giving the book just three stars. Why? Honestly, I didn't like the author. I feel for her, of course, and when the book ended I was glad to know that she had been able to process much of her grief. But there were times, early on, when I was floored by the way she responded to her loss; as the book went on, I was shocked that she didn't acknowledge these responses as inappropriate or horrifying. Take, for example, her terrorizing of the family that moved into her parents' home. She rang their doorbell and ran, played loud music outside their house, and called them at all hours, making ghostly noises, ignoring their please to just tell them what she wanted. She faced no apparent consequences for this and expressed no remorse within the pages of the book. She just seems to take it as her right to express her grief in any way she needed to, and those who were affected didn't matter. She needed help - grief counseling or a psychiatrist - but didn't seek it out, nor did her family find help for her. They just hid the knives. She doesn't reflect on this at all. There is nothing for grieving people to learn from; it's just 100% her experience, with nothing else here that doesn't relate specifically to her and her feelings.
Now, that's the book she wanted to write, and it's beautiful. It really is. But I can't say that I enjoyed it.
This was a truly moving book. I cannot possibly even imagine the immensity of Sonali's loss. I amazed at her honesty and fortitude. She openly shares some of the most anguishing details of her life. There is definitely too much we take for granted each and every day, and I think that, more than anything, is what I took away. We must be more appreciative, more aware, more connected to the lives we live because it could all be gone in a moment.
Heartbreaking and haunting, Sonali Deraniyagala shares the unimaginable grief she experiences after losing her parents, husband and two young sons in the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in December 2004. Both devestatingly sad and a beautifully written remembrance, this is a beautiful memoir.
I tried to read this and it was heartbreaking - memoir of a woman who lost her parents, husband, and two sons in the tsunami. Well written but 2013 is just not the year for me to read this.
I read almost this entire book while waiting for a delayed flight, which I can't say was the most relaxing experience but was incredibly absorbing. Sonali's story is truly devastating; I appreciated the honesty of the first third of the book when she is obliterated by grief and harasses the family renting out her childhood home. The narrative has a ruminative, circling quality to it similar to Elizabeth Alexander's The Light of the World that, at times, emulates the repetitive experience of grief. However, because this book purports to be more organized (with chapters and sub-chapters that are organized by location and date), I found this mode to be less effective than in Alexander's memoir and wish the book had been more tightly edited. Interesting (to me), her first acknowledgement in the book is to her therapist, without whom "this book would not exist," though he and her work with him is never mentioned in the narrative itself. I wish we could have seen even just a smidgen of this seemingly essential part of her journey towards "healing" (whatever that may be).
Beautiful, heartbreaking and ultimately so rewarding. This book is hard to read at times as the author recounts losing her husband, two small sons, and parents in one moment in the tsunami that devastated South and Southeast Asia. As she crawls her way back to life and finds a way to reclaim the memory of her family without driving herself insane, she gives you a peek into the beauty of ordinary life and how lucky we are to lead it. Truly memorable and special.
This memoir is grief stricken and poignant. However, coming away from it, despite the topic, I reflect more on the life that the author described than I do on the deaths of those that she loved.
Deraniyagala masterfully captures the nature of love, and the sense of her children and husband in simple unadorned language. She never over embellishes, she never puts a polite face on her grief, instead she brings us underwater with her and then slowly brings us into the life she used to have, as she highlights the ordinary, beautiful facets of the life she lost with the passing of her family. But they seem to return as she returns to life herself.
Deraniyagala masterfully captures the nature of love, and the sense of her children and husband in simple unadorned language. She never over embellishes, she never puts a polite face on her grief, instead she brings us underwater with her and then slowly brings us into the life she used to have, as she highlights the ordinary, beautiful facets of the life she lost with the passing of her family. But they seem to return as she returns to life herself.