Ugh this is hard for me... I really am such a positive reviewer for the most part, but this book I unfortunately found disappoin3 Sad to Say Stars 🌟🌟🌟
Ugh this is hard for me... I really am such a positive reviewer for the most part, but this book I unfortunately found disappointing.... this could be for multiple reasons, I went in with high expectations... I had read so many glowing reviews for this book I was expecting greatness.... also this is absolutely not in my preferred list of genres, but this also could’ve helped the book.... as I have very few books to compare it to.... I finished this book well over a week ago and I have sat on this review, because I just am not sure how to be honest without criticizing a persons life.... for this reason I may never read another memoir that I need to review, it is hard for me to separate the person from the book.... but I will try...
On a very positive note I thought the message of this book was wonderful education is extremely important.... it really is one thing nobody can ever take away from you.... I do admire Tara’s fortitude to acquire an education..... however there was a little luck involved here.... all I’m saying is the average person of average intelligence probably isn’t going to end up at Harvard.... no matter how hard they work.... clearly Tara was blessed with the intelligence to do so, and this was not addressed anywhere in this book... my father grew up with a single mother, his father passed away when he was one-year-old, they didn’t have much, but his mother forced him to go to at least one year of college and he ended up with a PhD in aeronautical engineering.... now I am very proud of my father he has accomplished a lot in his life and he is an amazing person, however he was also blessed with an amazing brain... apparently this skips a generation because my son was blessed with that same amazing brain.... all I’m saying is sometimes you need to give credit where credit is due.... if I had started college without knowing any algebra my freshman year I would have never made it through college much less ended up at Harvard, no matter how hard I worked..... so yes you should work hard, yes education is important, but you also need to be realistic with what your abilities are.... some of the hardest working people might end up at the local community college or not in college at all..... sorry that was a bit of a rant, rant over.... There are also some things in this book I found a little hard to believe.... however I will give Tara the benefit of the doubt on this, sometimes our perception of things isn’t exactly how things happened.... wow a lot of things could have been avoided if they just wore seatbelts....
But really in all honesty none of the things stated above cause me to not love this book, it just did not hold my attention.... I needed some light moments in the midst of all these horrible childhood memories.... even in the worst of childhoods there are some bright spots....
For me this book had a very positive message, however I would’ve preferred it to be delivered in a more positive and realistic manner.... and to all of you who love this book I am so glad you did! really I wish I had as well.... *** thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for a copy of this book ***...more
I give the afterward to this book a huge five stars, it wrecked me; if Lucy wrote this entire book I think it would have touched me much deeper.... I rI give the afterward to this book a huge five stars, it wrecked me; if Lucy wrote this entire book I think it would have touched me much deeper.... I read this book for my book club, and I am so curious to see how the discussion will go tomorrow... Paul was very hard for me to relate to, he was so scientific and logical; as his wife said in the afterword I do wish he had shown more of his personality throughout the book.... to be diagnosed with a fatal disease at any age would be tragic, but when you are only 35-36 can't even imagine.... what I got out of the book was a very logical perception of what you do when faced with death, I think I would've found this more profound if more emotion was involved.......more
