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A review by browncharlotte18
Disaster Falls: A Family Story by Stephane Gerson
4.0
I don't know what initially caused me to purchase this book. I'm not someone who opts to read memoirs unless they are required or gifted.
However, I still connected with this story and do understand the concept of the grief they faced. I've seen it in my own family through my aunt having another child years after losing her eldest child. In her circumstance, she also had another child to care for while going through her grief.
I've lost 2 grandparents, but I had time to grieve and accept their deaths long before it happened. Losing someone unexpectedly in an instant isn't comparable to watching someone's light dwindle out over months and years until they're just a shadow of what they once were.
Gerson's account of how his family processed the event in the days and weeks after the incident mirror the chaos I witnessed in my own life after my grandfather passed. People tended to come in and clutter my space and suffocate me when I just needed time to be alone to process the events.
The only issue I encountered in his recount is the cluttered and nonlinear way in which he told the story. It definitely can make the short book feel much longer than it is. By no means did that stall my immersion into this part of his life, though. It made it feel more real to me. Perhaps because I also have a similar way of interpreting and understanding the world: in ramblings and constantly looking for patterns and meaning in everything.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has experienced or is experiencing grief of any kind. Sometimes it does help to read about those who understand what you're going through.
However, I still connected with this story and do understand the concept of the grief they faced. I've seen it in my own family through my aunt having another child years after losing her eldest child. In her circumstance, she also had another child to care for while going through her grief.
I've lost 2 grandparents, but I had time to grieve and accept their deaths long before it happened. Losing someone unexpectedly in an instant isn't comparable to watching someone's light dwindle out over months and years until they're just a shadow of what they once were.
Gerson's account of how his family processed the event in the days and weeks after the incident mirror the chaos I witnessed in my own life after my grandfather passed. People tended to come in and clutter my space and suffocate me when I just needed time to be alone to process the events.
The only issue I encountered in his recount is the cluttered and nonlinear way in which he told the story. It definitely can make the short book feel much longer than it is. By no means did that stall my immersion into this part of his life, though. It made it feel more real to me. Perhaps because I also have a similar way of interpreting and understanding the world: in ramblings and constantly looking for patterns and meaning in everything.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who has experienced or is experiencing grief of any kind. Sometimes it does help to read about those who understand what you're going through.