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Digital Reads Reviews

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Only a mother would fight until her last breath. And this book showed me a mother’s truth in a fictional tale where the mother kept her hope alive up to the last minute that her child would awaken.

Emily had a degenerative neural disease, one of those which didn’t have a diagnosis. Her mother Rachel kept fighting for her, without allowing the docs to give up, yet had to give up and put her daughter to palliative care. An experimental therapy in Italy, and her fight began again. Her ex husband didn’t want the therapy for his daughter, and it was left to his new wife Eva to convince him.

Having read many books by author Kate Hewitt, I had cried through each one of them, except for this book. I was so proud of Rachel for standing up for her daughter when the world and its renowned doctors gave up. I had tears and lump in the throat at times on reading this, but the author wrote this with a finality that I had to stay with this mother right to the end of the story.

The power of the words were such that even though I cried, I wasn’t allowed to stay there. I had to get up and stand as a support to the mother. Emotions were strong, and they coursed through me like a lightning bolt. I didn’t like when the father opposed, when the docs gave up. I cheered when Rachel found support in Eva, in her mother, and her neighbor.

Everyone spoke about moving on, I wondered how a mother could, who loved her child from conception when she was a little bean. The whole story was so beautifully depicted that even in loss, there was acceptance and a quiet conviction everything had been done to the best of their efforts.

A beautiful story of hope… And a mother’s love.

NOTE

I realized on reading this book, that I was wrong. I had to undergo an experimental heart surgery, and I signed a Do Not Resuscitate in case a catastrophe occurred. After reading this book, I understood what my mother had to feel at that point when I gave up and she wanted me back at any cost. This book brought back my days at the hospital.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

Looking back, I wish I could find my way back to that moment. I’d snatch it and hold onto it and live in it for the rest of my life, if I could. When Emily could still throw her arms around me. Oh God, just give me that moment, or one like it again. That’s all I want.

From the moment Emily was born, reaching out with her tiny little star-shaped hand towards her mother, blinking with long eyelashes over soft blue eyes, she became Rachel’s whole world.

But Rachel’s worst nightmare comes true when a rare auto-immune illness leaves four-year-old Emily in a coma the doctors say she may never come out of. And Rachel has to make a heartbreaking decision—one that her ex-husband, Emily’s dad James, doesn’t agree with.

Terrified she’s going to lose her daughter for good, Rachel knows she must find a way to keep the hope alive for Emily. But there is only one person she can turn to for help to convince James—and it’s his new wife, Eva.

As an unlikely but powerful friendship develops between the two women, both Rachel and Eva will have to ask themselves—what is truly the right choice for the tiny, fragile little girl who lies between them?

Publication Date: February 2020

22 Responses

  1. Sounds like tissues are mandatory for this Shalini? I also carry a non-resuscitation order….I wonder if I will change my mind after reading this. I have two reads ahead of this. Your review is certainly thought-provoking. *:)

  2. that had to be bone-crushingly hard for you, Shalini. i can understand how you’d identify with the child and now the mother. i watched my mother do the same with my sister–long after i assumed that it is what it is.

    1. Sometimes age and maturity come later so also empathy. During my hospital days, since I was already a doc by then, making my rounds as a patient didn’t really affect me, neither did I feel it was a big deal about the surgery. Today when I look back, I realize that it was a big deal and Catastrophes could have occurred on the fateful day.

      It was much later I came to know I was the fifth patient in the whole of my country to undergo the procedure and the docs never had complete successes in any of the previous 4, didn’t feel it to be a big deal then, today I think that maybe it was

  3. Such a lovely review. Mothers’ love is an amazing, miraculous thing. Many years ago, I did the same for my younger one, too. The illness was different- severe amoebiasis for a four month old baby.
    You have been through so much Shalini. and your mother was with you all the way.

      1. I’m ok Shalini, thank you. Spent a blissful night last night temple hopping on Mahashivaratri.
        Are you better now, Shalini? Has the throat infection and fever gone?

        1. I am better but the weakness and cough is killing me as I don’t have energy to do anything, no interest too.
          I did manage to make a short visit to the temple of mahashivratri but spent the next few hours completely exhausted

          1. Its nice that you are much better. Coughs are the worst – really nasty. It sounds simple but taking frequent sips from a flask of hot water does control it much better than cough medication. And the home remedies! Paati vaithiyams. We all have our favorite go to remedies!
            Cheer up! You’ll be better in no time at all!
            So wonderful you could visit a temple for Shivaratri.

  4. You are the perfect example of the backgrounds we bring to our reading affecting our evaluation and enjoyment. I am thankful you survived the surgery.

    1. Aww thank you so much ❤️. I was brave in those times. Or foolhardy I would say… I didn’t understand others’ feelings much.
      Today I am hoping I am more empathetic

      1. Both life experiences and reading can make you more empathetic if you are open to it. From your reaction to this book, I would say you definitely are!

        1. I have become so after life knocked me down on my ass. Linda, when everything planned got destroyed, my ego too was knocked and I tried to be a better human being. Can’t expect others to be good to me when I wasn’t.

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