Me After You - Lucie Brownlee

Lucie and her husband Mark are making love at her mothers house, when he collapses on the pillow.  An ambulance is called, but at age 37 her husband dies.  So we get to join Lucie, and their young daughter B, as they try to adjust to his sudden death and how they continue on without him.

I do enjoy this type of memoir, a touch of real life.  Grieving I think must have been easier in the Victorian age when you wore black for a year and everyone knew what had happened to you.  You could shut yourself away and withdraw from the world.  Now we find ourselves in a world where grieving is not discussed, even though it will touch most of us many times in our lives.

Lucie does a good job of being real, and she is lucky to have the support of family and friends to help her through her tough times.  4/5

The Year My Mother Came Back - Alice Eve Cohen

Thirty years after her mothers death, Alice Eve Cohen finds a vision of her sitting at her kitchen table and joining her on medical appointments, giving her glimpses into the past and her childhood. Alice is diagnosed with a serious illness,and as she attends numerous appointments, again she finds her mother at her side. A chance to revisit their relationship, to apologise for past discretions and tell her mother how much she loved her.

At the same time her oldest daughter is leaving to study and is looking for her birth mother. Her youngest, is scheduled for leg lengthening surgery, a long and painful procedure and it was this mixture of stories of being a daughter and a mother that made this such a good little memoir.  4/5Ca

Dirty Chick - Antonia Murphy

I haven't read too many books lately that I didn't want to end, and I could have kept going reading this one.  Antonia Murphy and her husband decide to leave their lives in the US and sail to NZ, and after a few years and two small kids find themselves housesitting for a year in rural New Zealand.  Left to look after the animals at the small holding they live in, they gradually acquire a rather motley crew of adopted animals, alpacas, chickens, a rooster, goats and dogs.

With their two young children, fitting into the local community is a bit of a challenge, especially as their eldest Silas has special needs.  It sounds like they found the perfect spot though with a school that is able to adapt easily to his needs.

I loved this honest and highly amusing story of novice farmers.  I guess a lot of us have dreams of a small farm, but after reading so many stories about animal poop you might want to change your mind.  I don't have too many illusions about it being easy, but this makes me think I would be mad to create that much work for myself.  5/5

Love Life - Rob Lowe

Like his earlier memoir, this one surprised me again where I didn't expect to be impressed.  I knew Rob Lowe was a good writer, and his ability to bring you along on his stories makes me think that he is unfairly lucky in been blessed with talent, looks, intelligent and now another career as a successful author.  Once again it is not the sections about his life in the celebrity driven acting world or his famous friends that floors you - it the the paragraphs about his wife who helped him grow up or the story of taking his eldest son to college that allow you to see the man.

4/5

Spelling It Like It Is - Tori Spelling

So I don't have any cable tv, and haven't seen any of Tori Spellings reality tv shows, but still managed to enjoy her book.  As well as behind the scenes info about how many of the reality  show they make it planned out, it is more the story about the past year of her life.  We join her pregnant with her third child Hattie, and her surprise at falling pregnant within a month of giving birth and having a difficult pregnancy.  With continued bleeding Tori had to go on bed rest for the last few months of her pregnancy, while still trying to keep her show, and  manage motherhood.

I do admire her honesty, and she seems to really love her husband and kids.  She doesn't seem to have a clue about money, but after her upbringing you can see why she is buying pricey clothes and shoes and struggling to pay rent or a mortgage.  A quick fun read 3/5.

My Story - Elizabeth Smart

Wow - it is quite the story, and I bow down to the bravery of this remarkable young woman who has sat down and told us the whole story about what happened to her when she was fourteen.  How as a young, niave Mormon girl, she went off to bed with her sister.  Woken in the middle of the night by a strange man with a knife at her throat, she was forced out of her house and to climb hills behind her home.  There she found herself at a campsite where she found out that she was snatched to join him and his wife as the new younger wife.

Tied up, starved and raped, and threatened daily with being killed and the threat of her family being killed, you wonder how this poor wee girl got through.  But, survive she did, nine months of abduction before being recognised and returned to her family.  She writes well, and I did enjoyed hearing her voice, even though the subject matter is disturbing.  I hope she has a long and wonderful life.  4/5

Knocking on Heaven's Door - Katy Butler

The front cover of this book makes it seem like it will be grim reading, and after reading it I guess you can say it is not an easy read - especially if you have ageing parents.  Katy Butler lives a fair distance away from her parents, and her expectation is that they will have a gentle retirement and then some vague illness and die.  When her father suffers a stroke though, she finds that she is needed to help her mother with him as he returns home.  When his heart fails, a pacemaker is inserted to stabilise his heartbeats prior to a surgery.  As the years go by, her father also begins to suffer from dementia, sliding into becoming more frail and dependant on his wife and caregivers for daily help.

Less than a year after her fathers death, her mother then becomes ill and after the experience with her husband and his medical issues, Katys mother makes some different medical choices, with the end of her life not extended by surgical intervention.

In this memoir, Katy talks not only about her own family experience, but about the moral issues surrounding doing everything possible vs gentle waiting and a slow medicine approach to caring for our elderly relatives.  Working in a hospital I find myself asking the same questions, when I see elderly people who are subjected to vigorous surgery and treatments, ones which seem to only be prolonging the suffering and their dying.  For myself, I think I would much prefer a quality of my life rather than the quantity.

5/5 - As I will be thinking about this book for some time to come and think that it will certainly be worth a reread in a few decades, when I am sure not much would have changed in the care of elderly patients.

When It Rains - Maggie Mackellar

When it Rains - Maggie Mackellar (2010)

This little memoir didn't take me long to read, and once I started I wanted to carry on till it was finished, so I have dark circles this morning after sitting up in bed reading till almost 1 am.  Maggie tells us the story of  her life, how as a young mother of a five year old daughter and an unborn son, her husband spiralled out of control, with his mental health becoming more and more unstable.  Faced with bringing up her young children by herself, she is shocked with her mothers cancer diagnosis and death not long after.

Finding herself  grieving and trying to work and bring up her children by herself, Maggie packs the family up and heads out to the country to stay on the family farm.  It is here that you can feel a healing happening, a bit of normality even though her dreams are haunted by her husband.

I like a memoir, it reminds us of our own frailty and vulnerability, how precious our lives are and how much we touch others in our life.  It can help us also to remember that we are strong, that we can get through and that even though our stories and journeys are different we all just want love and happiness.  3/5

A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home - Sue Halpern

A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home - Sue Halpern (2013)

Sue  and her labrodoodle Pransky decide to take on a new role of therapy dog at a local nursing home, to ease the boredom and feel useful.  After a touch and go training schedule of trying to train Pransky to master walking on the lead, Pransky allows Sue to  meet a variety of patients and learn about their lives.  It is these stories about the people that  make this memoir so moving - the quiet moments when Pransky allows a gentle pat, or climbs on a bed of someone who is now to sick to make contact by themselves.  An honest look at the way people live the last years of the lives in a  nursing home, and how things can change so quickly.

4/5