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15 reviews for:
We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger's Daughter
Rachael Hanel
3.67 AVERAGE
15 reviews for:
We'll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger's Daughter
Rachael Hanel
3.67 AVERAGE
I'm not sure why this book has a somewhat low star rating - is it because the title makes it seem like it will be a humor memoir, when this one is more sparse prose attempting to unpack the messiness of grieving a parent one lost as a teen? I personally really enjoyed it, even though I would also describe it as dry. There were still very poignant emotional moments and I appreciated the way the author traced the arc of her family tree.
Beautifully written! Rachael Hanel creates such a strong sense of place (very much as Mildred Armstrond Kalish did in "Little Heathens"). I could hear the tractors and mowers and smell the freshly turned earth. At times it was heartbreaking, but anyone who has an interest in family histories, the midwest, or the somewhat secret world of families who operate in the world death and gravedigging, will love this memoir.
Another of the random memoir batch. It was a slim volume of a woman who grew up in a small town near my grandma. While my father wasn't a gravedigger and many of her experiences were very different from mine, the details and idiosyncrasies of living in a small midwestern towns were enough to keep me reading. It's much less about the gravedigging ([b:In the Land of Long Fingernails|5664274|In the Land of Long Fingernails|Charles Wilkins|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1344358195s/5664274.jpg|5835806] had much more of that); it's more about coming to terms with death. Which is fine but not really what I thought it was going to be about.
Overall, it was pleasant enough, but even though I finished it a few days ago I had already forgotten about it until I saw it was due at the library.
Overall, it was pleasant enough, but even though I finished it a few days ago I had already forgotten about it until I saw it was due at the library.
This was a fantastic read and a very interesting memoir of death in small town Minnesota. The story was so hypnotic and I could not put it down. It really touched me since I lost my Dad a few years ago. I loved reading about how she felt about the land because I feel exactly the same way. I long for wide open spaces. We know a lot of people who live in and around Waseca, MN so it made this book extra special. Highly recommended.
Wow. This was an amazing read! I had to stop and take breathers on occasion because it was just so powerful. Cheers to Rachael for writing a book that can be so insightful and uplifting about life and death without the depressing edge that is so innate to death and dying.
We'll Be The Last To Let You Down is a memoir by Rachael Hanel. It's a series of shorter stories in which she talks about her gravedigger father and life and death in a small town. The larger discussion is about how we deal with grief and death.
Rachael grew up playing among the gravestones in small cemeteries around her small town. Her father dug graves and her father and mother cut grass and tended the graveyards. Rachael grew up knowing the stories of the people who died, but grief never really hit home until it happens very close to her. Her stories alternate between some function of her father's job and a story of one of the departed. There is the man who lost his wife and children in one horrible accident, or the grave with the picture of the young girl, gone but frozen in time at that age.
The book features photos from Rachael Hanel's family. I really enjoyed the book and found the stories very personal, interesting, and worth reflecting on.
I was given a review copy of this book by University Of Minnesota Press and Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Thank you for letting me review this book.
Rachael grew up playing among the gravestones in small cemeteries around her small town. Her father dug graves and her father and mother cut grass and tended the graveyards. Rachael grew up knowing the stories of the people who died, but grief never really hit home until it happens very close to her. Her stories alternate between some function of her father's job and a story of one of the departed. There is the man who lost his wife and children in one horrible accident, or the grave with the picture of the young girl, gone but frozen in time at that age.
The book features photos from Rachael Hanel's family. I really enjoyed the book and found the stories very personal, interesting, and worth reflecting on.
I was given a review copy of this book by University Of Minnesota Press and Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Thank you for letting me review this book.
Rachael Hanel has written an honest memoir of growing up surrounded by the wonders of death and life as the daughter of a gravedigger. I appreciated the emotion of this story. There were moments of laughter as well as reflection and sadness.
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
reflective
slow-paced
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Can’t rate it because of how sad it was. You could feel the author’s trauma and loneliness.