Customer Reviews

Surviving Suicide: Help to Heal Your Heart--Life Stories from Those Left Behind

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This book is written by television news anchor, award winning journalist and former beauty queen Heather Hays. It includes her story, that of the author that lost her fiance of 10 years to suicide. She's been there, she knows the pain. Reading her account of the suicide that forever changed her life will bring tears to your eyes. But the book is not only about the author's journey back. It is so much more. As you read the accounts of literally dozens of other survivors you will be touched by the fragility of life and the need to lend support and love to those that have been left behind.

The survivors that tell their story in this book run the gamut - siblings left behind, friends, lovers, parents, children ... all left behind to deal with unimaginable pain. There is no point in sugarcoating this, you will feel the anguish and at times you'll have to put the book down to take a deep breath, or to weep. But you will pick it back up to see and feel the spirit and note the strength as survivors tell their stories. One by one they tell of the pain and despair. But that becomes the strength of the book because the contributors DO come back. They fight through the anger, pain and guilt and they do survive and in doing so, give hope to all of us.

A really touching, inspiring book, wtitten by a beautiful human being.

As a mom grieving over the loss of her son to suicide, I was so grateful to receive this book as a gift from my other son. It is a book that speaks not only to parents, but to siblings and children of suicides. It gives hope to those of us left behind that we are not alone in our despair. I belong to a small support group and bought this book as a gift for those friends who are trying to find happiness in life again. We are all grateful to the author for bringing all the stories together and to all those who contributed their own heartbreak.

This is a very deep and loving book by a gifted writer and sincere individual, my chrsitmas gift to everyone on my list

highly recommend

I am a little bias to the book being that I contribute a chapter in it but I think that this book will help anyone that has lost a loved one to suicide both recently and not. I am just blessed to have been a part of it. I am going to give this book to everyone in my family for Valentine's day.

The writing style of this book detracts from the stories. The stories are sort of "dramatized," which I don't believe is called for. I'd prefer to hear the stories without the author embelishing and summarizing. I'm about halfway through this book and may not finish it. Every single person so far seems to have religious faith and believe that the person they have lost is in a better place and that they will see their loved one again. This is absolutely not the case for everyone who has lost a loved one to suicide. If you have such faith, perhaps this book will be a comfort to you. For everyone else, get Carla Fine's book, No Time to Say Goodbye, which is much more powerful and authentically represents survivors of suicide. Silent Grief by Lukas and Seiden is also excellent. And read Kay Redfield Jamison's classic An Unquite Mind for insight.

this is one of the books that I read following my son's tragic suicide on March 16, 2010. (Google "Nathan Shane Straight" to read about this incredible young man.) While I don't recall this book in particular, I am sure it was helpful to me.