katetries 's review for:

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

5.0

emotional funny reflective

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You know me, I love a good book about grief and relationships. Everyone was a hot mess. The main thing I didn't like was the misogyny. I would have enjoyed it more if it was from a women's perspective. There was a lot of judging peoples bodies. But maybe I wouldn't have minded if I didn't read other peoples reviews pointing it out. *shrug*
One review was "A whole lot of words about nothing." Lol my favorite type of book!

Nothing was resolved in the end but I don't think I minded.

Someone underlined some parts in the beginning of my book. I don't think they finished it lol. But I didn't find importance or meaning in what they underlined. Interesting how different people get different things out of a book.
Made me cry.
I wrote down a lot of quotes that stuck with me:

I'm going home to bury my father and face my family, and she should be there with me, but she's not mine anymore.

She's not mine anymore! 

Fuck you very much. I hope Wade's kid has better luck in there than mine did.

Wow. I'm gonna like this book and it's gonna tear me a part. (it did)

And if you want to know where all the good guys are, we're standing right in front of you lacking the balls to actually make ourselves heard. 

Ugh. *rolling eyes* 

You never know when it will be the last time you'll see your father, or kiss your wife or play with your little brother, but there's always a last time. If you could remember every last time, you'd never stop grieving. 
...and I never want the movie to end... because when the movie ends the house lights will come back up, and real life will materialize around us like hidden creatures in the horror movie we should have gone to instead.

That's why I love movies. You can live in a movie and pretend your life is different than it is.

It is quite likely that I will never see either one of them again, and the thought saddens me... That's the thing about life; everything feels so permanent, but you can disappear in an instant.

This was about his coworkers visiting his father's shiva. I have felt this before. Coworkers or friends you know won't last. You can have a strong bond with someone and think 'this person will mean something to me forever' but they won't. Sometimes you can feel them slipping away and there isn't really anything you can do about it because that's the way it's supposed to go. 

This is a crucial moment, I know that, but that's never stopped me before.

Wow. Yes. You can always choose to do the right thing and you know what the right thing is and what you should do but you don't. I have done this recently. That's never stopped me before! Maybe I'm not a good person.

You think you have all the time in the world, and then your father dies.
My siblings and I will always struggle trying to confront an honest emotion. We'll succeed, to varying degrees with outsiders but fail consistently sometimes spectacularly with each other.
Sometimes it's heartbreaking to see your siblings as the people they've become. 

Wow. This. Sometimes it's heartbreaking to see [yourself/ your parents] as the people they've become. You're a different person, life had done that to you.

It would be so nice to believe in God.

Lol I think this all the time. Religious people sometimes seem happier. It seems like they're able to give their problems away. Or they have  more hope than me. 

The next time I see them... he probably won't let me kiss him on his cheek anymore. the thought fills me with sadness and I give him a second kiss.

This was about saying goodbye to his nephew. I feel this about my cousins or my nephew. They will grow up and become teenagers and they won't think I'm cool or want to play with me anymore. Life will tear them down. This also makes me remember a part in the book where he is holding his baby niece and is thinking about how she is going to grow up and go through hard things and become an adult. It's heartbreaking growing up.

It's impossible to know the people your parents were before they were your parents.

This also makes me think of a quote from the book when one of the sad mommies says something like "having kids changes everything" and Judd says "not having them changes everything."
Yup. 
Okay I'm changing my review from 4.5 to 5. The more I think about this book, the more I like it. My favorite books are ones that I can't stop thinking about.