All of this can be called a spoiler. This is that spoiler tag. Don’t read this if you think you want to read this. There is literally no way to talk about this book without spoiling it.
You’ve been warned.
This book speaks about grief in a way I can’t explain. It touches these ideas of how we hide these things that hurt us, how we develop coping mechanisms that are and aren’t healthy. The main character suffers exruciating loss. Loss that her mind hides from her and creates these physical symptoms for, which we all know is absolutley possible. (I’m hoping to read “The Body Keeps the Score” for this soon.)
The main character suffers from these inexplicable headaches that are absolutely debilitating, she’s stuck on percocets and is living in this, half world? This place that tells her she’s weak but also that she’s special, that she’s a member of a great thing but also nothing without their patriarch. Sounds like an abusive relationship right?
Cady, the main character, suffers, she makes sure she does. She gives up those things dearest to her in an attempt to punish herself, she creates these ghosts who come and try to guide her back to the truth and with that, herself.
It takes until the last act for her to be able to rememeber. It takes until the second to last act for the ghosts of her past to help her forgive herself. They task her to be better and kinder, to live.
I lost a friend, someone like family years ago. The loss was something I never really dealt with. The hole it left within in, the guilt I lived with colored the way I lived my life after. There was a definite before and after for me.
I still remember the last night I spent with my friend, my non blood sister, and I can never forget that I hesitated in probing deeper. For years I lived with this feeling of guilt. Of what if?
I made so many bad decisions, scratch that, because that’s not true. I made a small handful of bad decisions, I can count them on one hand. But those decisions made huge impacts on my life. (Inbetween those terrible decisions I made so very many good decisions, great decisions, I can finally admit.)
Eventually those decisions led me to a breaking point. Either evolve or die.
I’ve always been a fighter…
So I evolved.
The main character suffers. Her grief completley transforms her life, her guilt debilitates her, her amnesia steals precious memories from her, but in the end she accpets what’s happened and lives.
She chooses to live.
I’m really big on this idea of choice.
Read this book even thought you already know. At the end of the day it’s the journey and this journey is well worth the ticket price.