Speak to Me : Grief, Love and What Endures

Rating:
Summary: Dry book about an interesting subject...
Review: I read Marcie Hershman's book to give me insight on grief and mourning. Although the topic of voice is intriguing & often neglected, I found the writing to be very dry and difficult to read. The book is brief (100 pages) but for me, I found it hard be propelled forward with detailed descriptions of metaphysical topics. It was excrutiatingly dull for me to complete this short book.

Rating:
Summary: It crosses boundaries of love, spirituality and the present
Review: My brother died almost three years ago, but it took me almost two years of Marcie Hershman's book sitting on my bedside table to get up the courage to read more than a few pages now and then. I finally finished the whole thing today, in one sitting, and am sorry now that I waited. It has been cathartic, enabling me to mourn and to cry in a way that I couldn't before. Her book is full of gentleness, love and writing that flows straight from her pen into our heart. In "Speak to Me" she crosses over boundaries and in between worlds as if they are water. Dreams, spiritual thought, a sometimes complicated childhood and the here and now of her brother Rob's TV producing - she does not limit herself because the story is not one of limits, but of expansion. She has touched a chord that those of us who have lost somebody can identify with. There are many of us who have probably heard the voices, and dreampt dreams about loved ones who are gone. Marcie Hershman, who writes so lovingly about her brother's voice, is, in fact, OUR collective voice to the world.

Rating:
Summary: It crosses boundaries of love, spirituality and the present
Review: My brother died almost three years ago, but it took me almost two years of Marcie Hershman's book sitting on my bedside table to get up the courage to read more than a few pages now and then. I finally finished the whole thing today, in one sitting, and am sorry now that I waited. It has been cathartic, enabling me to mourn and to cry in a way that I couldn't before. Her book is full of gentleness, love and writing that flows straight from her pen into our heart. In "Speak to Me" she crosses over boundaries and in between worlds as if they are water. Dreams, spiritual thought, a sometimes complicated childhood and the here and now of her brother Rob's TV producing - she does not limit herself because the story is not one of limits, but of expansion. She has touched a chord that those of us who have lost somebody can identify with. There are many of us who have probably heard the voices, and dreampt dreams about loved ones who are gone. Marcie Hershman, who writes so lovingly about her brother's voice, is, in fact, OUR collective voice to the world.

Rating:
Summary: A Personal Look at Grief
Review: Not many books deal with the loss of a sibling and how the death of a brother or sister changes the way you see the world. I found this book extremely helpful to me, although I did not lose a brother, but my husband of sixteen years. Once I started reading, I couldn't put this book down. I started in the afternoon and kept reading through the night. I felt like I was having a heart to heart talk with a good friend. I was happy by how different it was from the usual "how to get over grief" type of book, full of rules and advice. Highly recommended.