A review by kiwikathleen
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

1.0

The blurb for this book makes it sound really good, but I couldn't get interested so after 40 pages I have given up. Perhaps the people are too ordinary - after all, I've just finished reading a book about a man who has climbed Everest (among many other things), but then a woman who has done all the things the author's mother has done, like being on the board of this or that international organisation (I think that's what was said) and going on humanitarian trips to Afghanistan etc., with scant regard to her own safety and complete disregard for her family's concerns, is hardly ordinary either. It's also probably not within the bounds of entirely ordinary to have two of your offspring in gay relationships, but this fact was dropped in so casually in this first part of the book that there's no indication if there was any drama over this.

This book could well have been a celebration of the extraordinary, all wrapped up in the tragedy of an early(ish) death and an exposition of how books can forge connections between us, and if there'd been wry comment on the mother's controlling nature rather than passive acceptance of it, and if there'd been real delving into the shared books rather than the tiniest dip (almost like name-dropping), then I could well have enjoyed it. Sadly, I found it so dull that it was easy to stop reading.