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

reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

I get it. Having lost a parent, I wanted to immortalise my memories and remember all the good things my dad did, too. 

Will Schwalbe clearly worships his mother. I would too, if my mom made it her life’s work to volunteer in refugee camps, build an Afghan library, or be brave enough to volunteer again after getting shot. Yes, Mary Ann Schwalbe was a superhero of a woman. The next mother Teresa- one who is so selfless, Will thinks if she were to be rescued from a burning building, her first words to the fireman will be, “have you heard of the Afghan library?”

Despite all these accomplishments, we never really get to know Mary Ann as a mother, spouse, or friend. Will shares that when he was six, he had a favourite toy. One day, he couldn’t find the toy, and Mary Ann told him the toy died. It turns out she gave his toy to a refugee. For some reason this didn’t quite sit well with me. Will said he has “an overabundance of toys”, and yet his mother didn’t even realise she had given away his favourite toy. 

That’s also the other thing about this book. You realise how much privilege their family has. At one point, Will shares their whole family of 5 were able to go on a sabbatical for two years. All of them were educated from Ivy league schools and hold numerous frequent flyer miles. Mary Ann herself probably holds the world record for being the longest survivor of pancreatic cancer- she had the best treatment. It was really hard to sympathise with them whenever things like these get casually mentioned and/or implied.

I feel bad for rating this as it is, but it really didn’t resonate with me. I guess this was everything to do with my expectations and the way this was written. I was thinking it would be somewhat similar to Paul Kalanithi’s memoir. Instead, this book felt like a long winded obituary with a mix of book reviews. Will wrote a weekly blog for his mum, and I kind of wish he had chosen to share those, so we had more insight into the kind of person Mary Ann was when she wasn’t saving the world.

The whole book was so painfully slow, but I did look forward to the books that were mentioned in their book club. After all, this is what grabbed me in the first place. It’s a shame that Mary Ann was only a fan of fiction that had morbid themes, so I didn’t get much out of their recommendations. At least we both agreed that Khaled Al-Hosseini and Stieg Larsson wrote phenomenal novels.