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A review by jenbsbooks
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
3.25
I liked this ... didn't love it. There were some interesting portions, some statements I liked and highlighted, but I also felt a little like I had to push through to the end. As the author himself says in the note at the beginning "I didn't know I was going to write this book, I've had to rely on my memory, along with notes, papers, lists, letters, emails ..." and it does feel a little pieced together. It's both a general rundown of the author's mother's life, a bit on their relationship, and a peek at the books that they read together. Everything stays pretty superficial though, it didn't seem to really delve deep enough to grab me emotionally. I tagged a couple of the books to put on my list, but so many of them didn't sound like ones I'd be interested it, even though Will and his mother apparently loved them. I'd really only heard of a few of them (The Hobbit, Olive Kitteridge, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
This book popped onto my TBR because I found a physical copy ... I can't recall if it was in a LFL or a thrift store. Add in non-fiction November and I figured I'd give this a go. Despite the possibilities, it read a little dry. One thing it did reinforce for me is that I do not want to get old, or go through operations or treatments that require so much of my family's time, money, worry. I still just cross my fingers for a quick and easy (and early) exit and still can't help but wonder about why we don't let people make the choice ... I know some would still want to fight to the end, but I would prefer to just have the official goodbye and end it on my own terms.
It was interesting to hear about so many books, but again, it was all superficial, just basic stuff, nothing really telling ... a deeper dive would be a bit of a spoiler to anyone who hadn't read the books, but as it was, it was fairly blah.
The author states "I had so many Davids in my life..." and boy did he ever! That's a disadvantage to nonfiction if you are keeping names true, and you have this many repeats. I was seriously confused at times over all the Davids. When one was killed in a car accident (the author of a book Will was editing) I thought it was his partner David, and wondered at the lack of emotion addressing the death ... and then I was confused when David still appeared to be around (and wondered if this was more time shifts).
1st person/Past tense. The mother/son are both left/Democrat. Adoration of Obama, work with refugees, the author is gay as is his sister, discussed but it isn't overdone.
No proFanity. Some of the other words I notice ... careened, scrum, sneaked, Carnegie (NEG pronunciation). Mention of Ambien. Vero(Beach) ... Hubs and I watched "Kaos" recently and "vero" was a work said in that and I'd always think of it when it was said here. ARB ... Already Read Book ;)
The narration was good, I wonder how the mother would have liked her "voice" as the male narrator presented it. There were a few accents, which the narrator added in.
This book popped onto my TBR because I found a physical copy ... I can't recall if it was in a LFL or a thrift store. Add in non-fiction November and I figured I'd give this a go. Despite the possibilities, it read a little dry. One thing it did reinforce for me is that I do not want to get old, or go through operations or treatments that require so much of my family's time, money, worry. I still just cross my fingers for a quick and easy (and early) exit and still can't help but wonder about why we don't let people make the choice ... I know some would still want to fight to the end, but I would prefer to just have the official goodbye and end it on my own terms.
It was interesting to hear about so many books, but again, it was all superficial, just basic stuff, nothing really telling ... a deeper dive would be a bit of a spoiler to anyone who hadn't read the books, but as it was, it was fairly blah.
The author states "I had so many Davids in my life..." and boy did he ever! That's a disadvantage to nonfiction if you are keeping names true, and you have this many repeats. I was seriously confused at times over all the Davids. When one was killed in a car accident (the author of a book Will was editing) I thought it was his partner David, and wondered at the lack of emotion addressing the death ... and then I was confused when David still appeared to be around (and wondered if this was more time shifts).
1st person/Past tense. The mother/son are both left/Democrat. Adoration of Obama, work with refugees, the author is gay as is his sister, discussed but it isn't overdone.
No proFanity. Some of the other words I notice ... careened, scrum, sneaked, Carnegie (NEG pronunciation). Mention of Ambien. Vero(Beach) ... Hubs and I watched "Kaos" recently and "vero" was a work said in that and I'd always think of it when it was said here. ARB ... Already Read Book ;)
The narration was good, I wonder how the mother would have liked her "voice" as the male narrator presented it. There were a few accents, which the narrator added in.