How To Talk To A Widower
Registered by 
Cassandra2020
of Roslin, Scotland United Kingdom on 2/15/2013
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
Cassandra2020 of Roslin, Scotland United Kingdom on 2/15/2013 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Taking on holiday to read and release
Journal Entry 2 by Cassandra2020 at Comfort Hotel in Hayes, Greater London United Kingdom on Monday, March 4, 2013
Cassandra2020 at Comfort Hotel in Hayes, Greater London United Kingdom on Monday, March 4, 2013
Released 11 yrs ago (3/2/2013 UTC) at Comfort Hotel in Hayes, Greater London United Kingdom
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Left on a table in the reception area
Will try and add a review later
Will try and add a review later
The final book of my holiday reading and equally lightweight to my other choices but I'm really struggling to find what I want to say about this book - it's taken me a couple of weeks to come up with these words!
It's all about Doug, the widower in question, his wife's son, Russ, and how they both deal with the aftermath of her death. Now that makes it sound deep and heavy, but it isn't. It's humourous and touching and surprisingly lighthearted.
Doug was always surprised that someone like Hailey chose him. She was bright and witty and beautiful but also older than him, with one failed marriage behind her and a teenage son: Russ. Despite that, they were happy and Doug got on with Russ pretty well (I think they were nearer in age than Doug & Hailey). She dies suddenly leaving Doug with a house and settlement and no need to work. Russ, on the other hand, was never formally adopted and finds himself having to leave the house he's grown up in & go to live with his father, step-mother and step-siblings. Both deal, or rather don't deal, with their grief in different ways. Doug withdraws from the world, Russ starts 'acting out' and getting into trouble at school. Add to this, Dougs twin sister, his disfunctional parents and younger sister, Ross's step family and the various friends and neighbours and you get a funny yet emotional mix.
I'm not sure that the book helps with the grief process, but I suspect it may help folk to understand it. Certainly there were some nice parallels drawn between Doug's loss of Hailey and his Mother coping with the uncertainty of the aftermath of his Father's stroke - each day he wakes up with more or less memories & she never knows what the day is going to bring: “You lost your wife, Douglas. My heart breaks for you, it really does. But I lose my husband every day, all over again. And I don’t even get to mourn.”
There are quite a few nice quotes in the book & some of them have been tagged here:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/how-to-talk-to-a-widower
I finished this book just as I got back to the UK, so I left it in the Reception area of the Comfort Inn Heathrow, Hayes.
It's all about Doug, the widower in question, his wife's son, Russ, and how they both deal with the aftermath of her death. Now that makes it sound deep and heavy, but it isn't. It's humourous and touching and surprisingly lighthearted.
Doug was always surprised that someone like Hailey chose him. She was bright and witty and beautiful but also older than him, with one failed marriage behind her and a teenage son: Russ. Despite that, they were happy and Doug got on with Russ pretty well (I think they were nearer in age than Doug & Hailey). She dies suddenly leaving Doug with a house and settlement and no need to work. Russ, on the other hand, was never formally adopted and finds himself having to leave the house he's grown up in & go to live with his father, step-mother and step-siblings. Both deal, or rather don't deal, with their grief in different ways. Doug withdraws from the world, Russ starts 'acting out' and getting into trouble at school. Add to this, Dougs twin sister, his disfunctional parents and younger sister, Ross's step family and the various friends and neighbours and you get a funny yet emotional mix.
I'm not sure that the book helps with the grief process, but I suspect it may help folk to understand it. Certainly there were some nice parallels drawn between Doug's loss of Hailey and his Mother coping with the uncertainty of the aftermath of his Father's stroke - each day he wakes up with more or less memories & she never knows what the day is going to bring: “You lost your wife, Douglas. My heart breaks for you, it really does. But I lose my husband every day, all over again. And I don’t even get to mourn.”
There are quite a few nice quotes in the book & some of them have been tagged here:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/how-to-talk-to-a-widower
I finished this book just as I got back to the UK, so I left it in the Reception area of the Comfort Inn Heathrow, Hayes.
