A touching memoir about a man dealing with his wife's cancer. Brendan Halpin wraps his readers up and draws them into his story with excellent writing and depictions of real characters you find yourself feeling for and caring about. An excellent book for anyone who has gone through a similar ordeal, and a eye-opener for anyone who hasn't.
Halpin is a high school teacher, married with a three-year-old daughter when they get the horrible news. He writes about Kirsten's diagnosis, meetings with the medical teams, treatments, and everything in between. We get a lot of pop culture, a lot of dark humor, and an awful lot of honesty. Sarcasm is king. Halpin describes life as a temporary single parent; the recipient of a ton of pity; and his fear of losing the most important person in his life. Sometimes he is angry, sometimes he is sad. He's almost always funny.
I found this to be a great, great book. There's a lot of cursing, a lot of soul-searching, and a lot of questions. Many of the questions can't be answered, but like all of us, he tries his best with what he has to work with. Recommended to anyone who does not have a ridiculous imagination and convinced that she has ovarian cancer. Although recommended to those aforementioned hypochondriacs if they do actually get a diagnosis of cancer. Let's hope that means I won't be rereading this in a few weeks.
I found this to be a great, great book. There's a lot of cursing, a lot of soul-searching, and a lot of questions. Many of the questions can't be answered, but like all of us, he tries his best with what he has to work with. Recommended to anyone who does not have a ridiculous imagination and convinced that she has ovarian cancer. Although recommended to those aforementioned hypochondriacs if they do actually get a diagnosis of cancer. Let's hope that means I won't be rereading this in a few weeks.
