Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Original edition (February 1, 2011)
“Angela Balcita’s love story takes a couple of artsy wanderers off the road and into the bright, scary world of transplants, dialysis, and neonatal intensive care.” —Marion Winik, author of The Glen Rock Book of the Dead
From the pages of the New York Times’ Modern Love column comes one woman’s moving and uproarious story of how love and laughter rescued her from life-threatening illness. Angela Balcita’s cathartic memoir of finding love while wrestling with kidney failure will strike a chord with anyone yearning for a poignant, true-to-life romance…with a real fairy tale ending.
About Angela Balcita
Angela Balcita received an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. She is an editor at Imagine magazine, a publication of Johns Hopkins University. Her writing has been included in journals such as The Iowa Review and Utne Reader and named a notable entry in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers. She lives in Baltimore.
Angela’s Tour Stops (Please be sure to visit these other bloggers to see what they have to say about this book as well)
Tuesday, February 1st: Books Like Breathing
Wednesday, February 2nd: My Own Little Corner of the World
Thursday, February 3rd: Take Me Away
Wednesday, February 9th: Reviews from the Heart
Thursday, February 10th: Rundpinne
Friday, February 11th: Debbie’s Book Bag
Tuesday, February 15th: Reading Through Life
Wednesday, February 16th: I’m Booking It
Monday, February 21st: BookNAround
Tuesday, February 22nd: Clever Girl Goes Blog
Wednesday, February 23rd: Life In Review
Thursday, February 24th: The Book Chick
I'm not a super large fan of memoirs. However, when Trish from TLC Book Tours asked me if I'd be interested in reviewing this book, I couldn't pass it up!
Our author, Angela, bares her life and soul in this book. She shares her struggles of dealing with a serious kidney disease (glomerulonephritis) and the treatments and transplants required to keep her alive. She deals with all of these serious issues as if they were "no big deal". She uses a lot of humor (I laughed, I cried, I laughed until I cried) to keep her life so positive. The reader will see a different side of her towards the end though, so I don't want to mislead and have you thinking the entire book is positive. We are all human and I'm glad that the author chose to show this side of herself and her journey as well. Towards the middle of the book I was feeling that the story was a bit unrealistic, although enjoyable, until a tide of events changed her life and we see the other side.
This is a great book to curl up with and read on a rainy day (or any day!) It's a super quick read as well. This one is going to school with me so my students can take turns reading it! :) Overall, it's a 4 out of 5 stars. You might want to know that there is some strong language in this book.
Many thanks to Trish and TLC Book Tours for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book!
I've just started this book and looking forward to reading more. It looks like I'm going to enjoy this.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you enjoyed this one - Angela's story is just so moving!
ReplyDeleteThanks for being on the tour.