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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
I enjoyed this book and found it to be a good companion read to The Seven Husband's of Evelyn Hugo. Two very different stories of powerful famous women looking back at their lives.
Enjoyed the premise of this wealthy woman wanting to plan her own death. How her children dealt with inheritance issues, etc. a bit long for my taste.
DNF at chapter 5
maybe I found this book at the wrong time or in the wrong mood but I didn’t click with it at all. There was something about the writing style and the introduction of characters that totally turned me off the book.
Dava is a very flawed character and I’m not sure if we are meant to like her entirely but what I appreciate most is that no one is fully likeable. Everyone has their issues and baggage. Maybe Dava has more than others but it’s still a fact of life (or in this case death). I thought the characters had depth, I was invested in them and wanted to see how this last day would impact their future selves. It definitely kept my interest and was a unique take on death. It definitely makes a person think about their own mortality and the life they’ve lived. I’d definitely recommend.
It sounds more promising and compelling than it actually was.
(Full disclosure: The author is an old Emerson friend so pride is definitely influencing my review!) This moving novel is all about legacy, especially through work and children, and how much control one has in shaping what remains. Kirthana Ramisetti's extensive pop culture knowledge and previous role as an entertainment writer shine through on every page, she's especially good at details about lifestyles of the rich and famous. Additionally, I was particularly impressed that an original song she wrote for a pivotal reveal in the novel is now a real song, too. (I'm going to have to get the audio book to take a listen.) An auspicious debut for a talented voice - bravo!
I loved the premise of this: Self-made billionaire philanthropist Dava Shastri basically wants to listen in on her own funeral. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she arranges to have her death announced a day before her scheduled euthanasia, just so she can read her obituaries. She invites her children to her private island for a final Christmas gathering and tries to isolate them from the media coverage by having them check their phones at the door ... but the announcement leaks to them anyway. And the media coverage isn't quite what she expected. Two major secrets she thought were long buried come out, and the juicy scandals become the headlines, overshadowing her long career of charitable work. And naturally her grown children have questions.
I could understand Dava wanting to know what would be said about her, but I COULDN'T understand how she could put her legacy -- her "legend" -- so far above what her own children were going through. Her reputation was more important to her than their grief. She acknowledges to herself that she "could not extricate her love of [her children] with her own conception of herself and the Shastri name.... She didn't want to feel that way, and yet she had to acknowledge that her desire to be a force of good in the world was equalled by her desire to have her name stand tall and resolute through generations, similar to Rockefeller" (her personal hero). She also has an amazing ability to compartmentalize her life. She carried on an extramarital affair without guilt because she considers it "self-care."' Later in life, she pursued a friendship with a daughter she gave up for adoption before her marriage -- an easy, give-and-take relationship completely unknown to her other children, on whom she put a heavy weight of expectation.
So, yes ... I found Dava frustrating. That said, toward the end of the story, some touching moments had me genuinely misty-eyed. And I'll be looking up some of the less familiar songs that create a backdrop for much of her character's life. Ramisetti resists tying things up in tidy package at the end, which is more realistic, but I would have preferred a more definite resolution or two.
I could understand Dava wanting to know what would be said about her, but I COULDN'T understand how she could put her legacy -- her "legend" -- so far above what her own children were going through. Her reputation was more important to her than their grief. She acknowledges to herself that she "could not extricate her love of [her children] with her own conception of herself and the Shastri name.... She didn't want to feel that way, and yet she had to acknowledge that her desire to be a force of good in the world was equalled by her desire to have her name stand tall and resolute through generations, similar to Rockefeller" (her personal hero). She also has an amazing ability to compartmentalize her life. She carried on an extramarital affair without guilt because she considers it "self-care."' Later in life, she pursued a friendship with a daughter she gave up for adoption before her marriage -- an easy, give-and-take relationship completely unknown to her other children, on whom she put a heavy weight of expectation.
So, yes ... I found Dava frustrating. That said, toward the end of the story, some touching moments had me genuinely misty-eyed. And I'll be looking up some of the less familiar songs that create a backdrop for much of her character's life. Ramisetti resists tying things up in tidy package at the end, which is more realistic, but I would have preferred a more definite resolution or two.
(3.5 stars bumped to 4). I can’t decide if I really liked this book or found it mildly enjoyable. Dava is terminally I’ll. She’s invited her children and their families to the island (of course, they have an island) for a farewell weekend. Dava has decided to have an assisted suicide procedure instead of seeking treatment for her cancer. (First of all: you’re a freakin’ billionaire, Dava. Did it occur to you that there may be alternative treatments somewhere in the world you could afford to try?) Dava announces to the world she’s dead before she’s actually dead and she greedily reads what’s written about her death. Anyway, we, as readers, learn that Dava has some secrets the press finds out only after Dava is dead.
Loved the writing here, intriguing premise and some early twists brought me in, although rich people problems are not so interesting and the final half felt like themes repeating unnecessarily. Will be very interested to read her next book.