12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ridiculous, bizarre, and poignant, March 6, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Not a stranger to loss, having been thru sudden, long term illness, and tragic deaths, I chose this book to open my heart and enhance my understanding. It is a novel of a household guide writer's final days facing the end as she succumbs to a losing battle with cancer.
The book goes from the ridiculous...Delia's household books and advice for example. To the...
Bizarre and I might add craziness...of watching a live (no pun intended) autopsy; witnessing the extraction of a loved one's heart; getting a casket made of rough hewn and cratelike materials to place on her porch for what seems like months before her 'passing' so her young daughters can decorate with drawings etc, her husband too; making blood sausage out of her own blood to leave for her unwitting family to devour after she is gone to have a part of her within them etc.
To the poignant...the search for something...closure, acceptance, reassurance, reconnection to her lost son; and the ultimate end when the focus becomes more real and understandable.
Her husband, Archie, is a prince of a man, and her children, well, they behave like children.
While I will not most likely forget this book, I would not have chosen it had I known its contents.
The final pages did reinforce my own personal convictions...to try to live life to its fullest, appreciate the smallest and most valuable blessings and embrace the ones I love and care for.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An endearing book, March 10, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Delia Bennett is dying of cancer. She is a daughter, wife, mother, writer, domestic goddess, and an advice columnist. We see the world through her eyes as she accepts the end. She is even writing a manual entitled, "The Household Guide to Dying." She struggles with how to say goodbye to everyone and what she can leave behind for them.
Delia does not feel sorry for herself, in fact, she keeps up her every day life and goes on as though nothing unusual is happening to her and/or her family. She continues to write her advice column which we get to read from the people who write to her and her responses. We get to follow along as she writes her last book about dying. Delia is a very likeable and unusual protagonist.
Since Delia is a bibliophile; therefore, there are many literary references in this book. Many Jane Austen references are made and the death poet, John Donne, has his fair share. This book is wonderfully well written and should touch every reader in one way or another. Even if it's not the way you would want to go out of this world, you will be abel to appreciate it as Delia's way. This is a very touching and moving book.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tough to get into, and doesn't really break much new ground, June 11, 2009
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Ultimately, I think this author just wasn't for me. I felt like she spent such an exhaustive time detailing small incidents and moments that I began to wonder if she was just light on plot. I'm all for a solid chronicle, but good lord this was extreme. I didn't find Delia (the main character) very interesting, and at times she came off a bit wooden, and I could see the puppet-strings a bit too much. A book like this, focusing on a dying protaganist, relies so heavily on that character being interesting, that I felt like it just tanked the entire book for Delia to be so bland.
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