Rating: 
Summary: A sensitive look at a family overcoming tragedy with love
Review: This is an incredibly beautiful book. I found myself actually making noises out loud (sighs, wistful "ahs") while reading it! It is that beautifully written and that beautiful in its sentiment!The author does an amazing job in detailing her struggle to come not only to accept herself, but also to accept her brother's death (by suicide). She slowly peels away layers of her family history and the details of what led her brother to commit such a desperate act. I found this very moving as it allowed me more time to feel I understood him and to question (as everyone does when something like this happens), "Why?" I really cannot recommend this book enough. I hope you simply do yourself a favor and buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Tribute to Finneran
Review: This is the most gorgeous book I've read in a decade, seriously. I am a writer and I have taught college-level creative writing and literature for the past thirteen years. While researching a reading list for my class in reading and writing the memoir, it was my good fortune, and that of my students, to happen upon Finneran's book. I used the book that semester, and am using it again this fall for the same class. Aside from being a literary gem, the book provides rich opportunities to teach about writing well. It's lovely, poetic, searingly candid, exquisitely scenic. Every single character is painted in full detail, adding up to the portrait of a family who has lost something big. I highly recommend this book. If this world had half a brain, it would be on the bestseller list.
Rating:
Summary: Tribute to Finneran
Review: This is the most gorgeous book I've read in a decade, seriously. I am a writer and I have taught college-level creative writing and literature for the past thirteen years. While researching a reading list for my class in reading and writing the memoir, it was my good fortune, and that of my students, to happen upon Finneran's book. I used the book that semester, and am using it again this fall for the same class. Aside from being a literary gem, the book provides rich opportunities to teach about writing well. It's lovely, poetic, searingly candid, exquisitely scenic. Every single character is painted in full detail, adding up to the portrait of a family who has lost something big. I highly recommend this book. If this world had half a brain, it would be on the bestseller list.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite!
Review: This may be the best book of any kind that I have ever read. Finneran's profound exploration of family love is so true, so wise, so powerful. In line after line I recognized truths about my own family that I did not realize I knew. Her own family comes alive in this beautifully written memoir, but it is our family that we end up thinking about in new ways. What a gift.
Rating:
Summary: Truly unforgettable
Review: This memoir is one that I will never forget - it affected me in the way that The Lovely Bones did - it's left me with a profound feeling of heartbreak and poignancy. Kathleen Finneran is probably one of the bravest of authors as she lays bare many personal feelings and experiences of her own, along with the family tragedy that the Finnerans lived through when they lost 15-year-old Sean to suicide. She portrays her family, separately and wholly, as tight-knit, strong, extremely loving, but tragically touched by depression and suicide. I highly recommend this beautifully written, heartrending, precious memoir. It is one-of-a-kind.
Rating:
Summary: Knowing them
Review: While reading the reviews all of them say pretty much the same thing, They don't know how the family can cope with all that life has given them. All you have to do is know them and you will understand that this is a tight knit family that deals with what happens and doesn't let anything break them down. To put it into simple words they are strong.
Rating:
Summary: she touched a nerve
Review: Wow, I bought this book--knowing it was about the author's brothers suicide, but it is so much more! The family members ring true to my family members--I am not quite finished reading it yet..and I know there are times when I am reading it I need to put it down for a while and think about what the author has written. This truly is a book that allows me to think about myself, my past and into the years to come. It brings tears of happiness, pain and renewal.
| 
