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Book Review of Half a Life: A Memoir

Half a Life: A Memoir
reviewed on + 1438 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


Some reads are far beyond what one expects. This was one for me. I found it eye-opening and wrenching. A personal tragedy that occurred in the author's eighteenth year has haunted him throughout his life. While he could not avoid the accident that changed him he had carried guilt for years. He tried and tried to put it behind him but failed again and again. Therapy didn't help, talking about it didn't help. Nothing seemed to work for him until he read an article about grief and how some people could contain it by putting it on tape and listening to it when they needed to do so. In this way the event is restricted to a time and place. Writing this book was his attempt to move into the future and beyond the accident that so affected his life. One observation seemed particularly cryptic to me. He said that he probably would not have become an author if this had not happened to him.