Debra Gordon

Think again … Book contains Trigger topics

Revisado: 07-17-21

Spoilers included in review.

The author of the book reached out and suggested I read his recently released book. From what I knew the topic would be heavy.

About (as taken from the book’s jacket): (newlyweds) Mark and Sarah have everything they’ve ever wanted. With a baby boy on the way, all of their dreams are finally coming true. But the world has other plans for them. Soon the idyll is ripped from under their feet, and both are left to pick up the pieces of their broken lives.

After a few conversations with the author I learned that this book was his attempt at capturing the pain some acquaintances felt after losing a child (via still birth). He said he tried to handle the topic delicately and with much respect.

As a mother of two children and a friend of someone who did lose a baby in this manner I feel like the idea of child-loss is touchy and can trigger a reader. I would have like that piece of storyline to come out in the book’s description as a warning to potential readers that this book might not be for everyone.

In this same vein, I feel that he may have played it too safe and sterile. The book was written from the male’s perspective and it didn’t feel emotional or poetic which strikes me as odd because the author is also a published poet. If I were his editor I would have asked him to paint in some more emotional reality.

It felt like an historical account of the daily events of the main character and his grieving wife. The book also doesn’t waste time getting to the tragedy shortly into the book. I think there could have been more character development, for I never quite connected to the husband.

Instead of just facing the pain with his wife he blows up at a student (the main character is a teacher), quits his job because his pride got in the way, gets lost in dreams as a way to process the death of his son, and secretly drugs his wife because he’s too afraid to honestly communicate with her (gives her prescription meds based on a doctor’s recommendation for depression, but his wife hates taking pills so he slips them in her tea).

Did the author take you on a journey, yes. Was it all easy and hopeful - thankfully no cause sometimes life is hard and he shows that. However another spoiler, the book ends in a double suicide and THAT came out of no where. Again, another point of disclaimer about the book to prepare someone in the event this subject matter could be a trigger.

I have never lost a child, but I watched a friend lose theirs, attended the funeral and witnessed the weeks and months after as they began to slowly cultivate a new normal after their sweet child was no longer on this earth. Ryan’s approach left some things unexplored and I think there was a missed opportunity there.

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