loss – The Saucy Mama

Started: July 24th
Finished: July 31st
TSM Rating: 4/5

This book was definitely different from the romance I’ve been reading lately. Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of love in this book, but not romance, which was why I picked it. Just for something a little different.

Doug is in mourning. He’s 29 years old and his wife died in a plane crash. He’s a man set adrift, unanchored, unable to find his way back to dry land. He’s allowed himself to descend into the morasses of grief and hopelessness, avoiding the rest of the living world, including his stepson who has lost his mother and is also adrift in his grief.

Throughout the book he repeats these four sentences:

I had a wife. Her name was Hailey. Now she’s gone. And so am I.
How to Talk to a Widower, multiple pages

As he’s stuck in this rut, his pregnant twin sister decides to leave her husband, while his baby sister is planning to marry his friend, whom she met while sitting shiva for Hailey. On top of it all, his father had a stroke and is only lucid enough to be remember that Hailey has died about five percent of the time.

Grief is a funny thing. It has no schedule or timeline. It can put you in a strangle hold so tight that it feels like it will never let go. But with time, patience, and little grace you can get there.

While Doug isn’t quite a lovable protagonist, you do feel for him and the depths of his despair and his apprehensions about moving forward and on and what that means for his wife’s memory.

Started: May 6th
Finished: May 21st
TSM Rating 4/5

This was my first time reading a book on Kindle. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s convenient to have a book at the tip of my fingers and the highlighting on demands clutch. On the other hand, it’s more time on my phone, and the page numbering is a little weird.

That being said, I really enjoyed this book. It was a slow-burn, friends-to-lovers story about two imperfect people — Walker Hartrick and Talia Cohen — doing their best to survive after their worlds are flipped upside down. Walker has just lost his brother and sister-in-law in a drunk driving accident. This leaves him as the guardian of his five nieces and nephews.

For Talia, she is dealing with the one-two punch of finding out that she is infertile and her engagement ending. On top of that, her estranged father was responsible for Walker’s loss.

The beauty of this story is how believable and relatable both their journeys are. In some ways, Walker is the poster child of toxic masculinity’s belief that seeking help is a sign of weakness and the only way he can be any good to his family is to be “strong.” Even as his body is physically breaking down with panic attacks, he continues pushing to be there for his family.

In her own way, Talia is white-knuckling life as well. She comes to town to take over her father’s grocery store and throws herself into work. She also leans into being good to everyone else, including Walker and his family. Leaning into it helped her rediscover her self-worth and slowly heal from all that was ailing her.

When Talia and Walker come together, magic happens. They learn from each other. Give each other support and lift each other up. They help each other through, and both come out stronger on the other side.

I like that Golightly takes her time with the story and doesn’t rush through their progression, notably Walker’s. There are a lot of conclusions that he has to come to on his own. He wasn’t going to take specific steps until he was ready.

This book is filled with lots of little nuggets of wisdom. My favorite is this one:

Her mother always said “time is the wisest counselor of all.”
The Ones We Fight For, Chapter 23, page 198 (Kindle)

It’s a nice story, but be warned, it covers many heavy topics, including death, alcoholism, and infertility, all of which can be triggering for some.

Tag: loss

TSM Book Club Book #30: How To Talk To A Widower by Jonathan Tropper

TSM Book Club Book #20: The Ones We Fight For by Katie Golightly