Between Two Kingdoms By Suleika Jaouad || Book Review
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- čas přidán 8. 02. 2021
- Matthew reviews Suleika Jaouad's new memoir, Between Two Kingdoms. Is memoir as poignant as her New York Times Column "Life Interrupted." Find out the best parts of the memoir, the parts that could have been improved, and Matthew's reccomendation.
Pick up the book here: amzn.to/2MODhtf
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Thank you for this very good review, but I will say it’s good to have different perspectives on books because as an example this review is a review based off of someone living in the kingdom of the well, someone who is healthy. I have read the book and as someone who has lived in both the kingdom of the well, and the kingdom of the sick, and currently in the kingdom of the sick her descriptions of what’s it’s like living in the kingdom of the sick is spot on. Your point about Will as the role of a caregiver to someone who is seriously ill can be very exaggerated in the eyes of the person who is sick. Someone who is as sick as Suleika during the time of her active cancer and treatment the caregiver is everything to the sick person. At times the sick person at the most critical time such as during Suleika’s diagnosis and treatments Will was her everything including her link to the outside world so there can be a huge dependency to a person in this caregiver role which can be unrealistic in the sick persons eyes. I can tell you even long, stable marriages have crumbled under the pressure and stress of critical illnesses such as cancer. In her mind he was perfect and did so much to take care of her until he didn’t. When he didn’t want to be her caregiver anymore his detachment and abandonment was the ultimate betrayal. But actually he did more as a newer boyfriend than some spouses in supposedly stable marriages withstood, so he was a pretty good person, just humanly flawed and it sounded like he wanted his identity back. As a person with stage 4 relapsed blood cancer I can tell you the very opposite of what you desired of the book concerning the 60% being about her cancer and treatment struggle because I am faced with the same treatment in the not too distant future so I learned so much from her experiences in that respect, and the 30% where you wished for more travel in my opinion it would have just been another person going on a road trip which other books and CZcams is clogged with, all of these people traveling and on road trips, they’re not unique and after so many of them they get pretty flat and boring. What is unique about the 30% road trip is because of the 60% devastating health and near death experiences which gave the road trip even more depth, and color, almost like a child experiencing things for the first time, instead of just a boring road trip visiting a bunch of strangers. I did enjoy all of her trips especially the trip to Marfa since I live close to Marfa. Thanks for the trigger warning but personally living with two stage 4 cancers off and on for eight years nothing in books that have things about cancer trigger or bother me it’s something I live with everyday, so her book was absolutely not depressing or a surprise but actually quite helpful in trying to make treatment decisions, although it may trigger others. I totally agree with what you said, even though a larger part of it is intense with her cancer experiences she still portrayed a sense of uplifting hope in her writing. Although she has since relapsed, there is always hope. I look forward to more of your clear, honest book reviews.
Thank you that great review.
You're welcome!
I am currently reading this book which is a MEMOIR so I am totally confused as to why you keep referring to it as a NOVEL??
Surely if you review books, you do understand the difference between a memoir and a novel? One is non-fiction and the other is fiction.
Because you use the terms 'memoir' & 'novel' interchangeably, it is not clear to me that you understand the difference...