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Book Review of Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities

Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities
reviewed on + 330 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


As Elizabeth Edwards said herself in this book, she is not here to discuss the most recent escapades of Johns', she is here to discuss how she has gotten through each obstacle that has been placed in her path. But still I didn't get that out of this book. I didn't see how she actually pulled herself up.

I have never lost a child and I have no idea how a mother maneuvers through that, but this book shows me that it is a life long journey. Three quarters of this book is about the sudden and tragic loss of her son, how each and every decision thereafter included him in it. How one day she may deal differently with her cancer, her husbands infidelity, the media, the - fill in the next blank, but right here and right now she will always be incomplete because of one simple accident that took her son and changed her life forever.

Mrs. Edwards does touch on the other road blocks in her life, but nothing fully in depth, no juicy gossip, no preaching about how you should do it. Just a woman's story about how to put one foot in front of the other and taking a deep breath one day at a time.

What I liked about this book was it's lack of the typical "oh, poor me" that runs rampant in most memoirs, how she truly feels blessed with everything good in their lives. But what I did feel hit the "enough already" wall was the constant talk of her deceased son. As I said before, I've never lost a child, maybe it's normal to base every decision on what could have been, but at some point you have to move on.