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sitnstew 's review for:
The End of Your Life Book Club
by Will Schwalbe
This is a book about the death of the author's mother. That explanation is on its own is sufficient for me to have expected a heart-breaking.... or inspiring.... or emotional story. What I really ended up reading was a fairly dry, unemotional, one-dimensional tribute to Will Schwalbe's mother. The book essentially follows the last couple of years of Schwalbe's time with his mom where they share their love of books while they chat in waiting rooms at doctor's offices. The concept sounds like it would be full of heartbreak and tear-filled bonding between mother and son but it really wasn't.
I don't want to sell this book short as not being a lovely tribute to his mother, because I'm sure she'd be very proud, but what it lacked was a reason for me, the reader (who doesn't know his mom), to be interested. It lacked a heart. As with most eulogies, the author seemed unable to admit to any flaws in his mom, which is understandable but makes for bland reading. She's depicted basically as a superhuman who has single-handedly changed the world and hasn't said or done a single negative thing in her life. She was completely selfless and a champion of humanity. That's all well and good and very well may be true, but it just felt like a child describing why their mom is the best mom. The moments in the book that were told as life-lessons felt more like a advocacy campaign than a book I'd want to read.
I enjoyed some of the discussion about the novels they read, especially since I have read many of those myself, but that was mostly due to a comradery that I had regarding the other book, not because the story in this one made it more interesting or compelling. The concept fell flat and was lost in banal descriptions of the things that filled Schwalbe's time with his mom.
What really disappointed me the most is that the book simply lacked emotion. Something like this should have brought a grown man to his knees in a puddle of tears. I didn't even feel sad, or anything else for that matter, when his mom died. To me this one is a book to skip.
I don't want to sell this book short as not being a lovely tribute to his mother, because I'm sure she'd be very proud, but what it lacked was a reason for me, the reader (who doesn't know his mom), to be interested. It lacked a heart. As with most eulogies, the author seemed unable to admit to any flaws in his mom, which is understandable but makes for bland reading. She's depicted basically as a superhuman who has single-handedly changed the world and hasn't said or done a single negative thing in her life. She was completely selfless and a champion of humanity. That's all well and good and very well may be true, but it just felt like a child describing why their mom is the best mom. The moments in the book that were told as life-lessons felt more like a advocacy campaign than a book I'd want to read.
I enjoyed some of the discussion about the novels they read, especially since I have read many of those myself, but that was mostly due to a comradery that I had regarding the other book, not because the story in this one made it more interesting or compelling. The concept fell flat and was lost in banal descriptions of the things that filled Schwalbe's time with his mom.
What really disappointed me the most is that the book simply lacked emotion. Something like this should have brought a grown man to his knees in a puddle of tears. I didn't even feel sad, or anything else for that matter, when his mom died. To me this one is a book to skip.