slhandy45's review against another edition
5.0
A heartbreakingly beautiful examination of the complicated relationships between parents, children, spouses, siblings, and selves.
theresab93's review against another edition
4.0
*trigger warning: substance, physical, sexual abuse, & suicide*
A tough read in a good sense. Kucera wrote in such incredible way dealing with dark tones in a lighthearted way.
My only complaint really is it wasn't really chronological in some parts in the telling events and occasionally got lost if it when events happened
A tough read in a good sense. Kucera wrote in such incredible way dealing with dark tones in a lighthearted way.
My only complaint really is it wasn't really chronological in some parts in the telling events and occasionally got lost if it when events happened
zoemig's review against another edition
4.0
Everything I Never Wanted To Be by Dina Kucera is a memoir which is not done justice because to say it is a story of one family's battle with alcoholism and drug addiction, three generations of addicts, fails to capture the most powerful aspect of Everything I Never Wanted To Be which is Kucera's voice. Kucera herself was an alcoholic and pill addict for most of her three daughter's lives, and each of them has struggled with addiction in turn. Her youngest daughter Carly became a heroin addict at only fourteen and has been in and out of rehab since. Kucera's household also includes her mother who suffers from Parkinson's Disease and her grandson with cerebral palsy. Throughout the memoir Kucera struggles to support them all, working as a grocery store clerk despite having dreams of being a stand-up comic and writer. Even while telling a story filled with tragedy Kucera somehow manages to keep her sense of humour.
Everything I Never Wanted To Be is not a polished book- it is raw and gutsy and brutally honest. Kucera's words sear an imprint on the reader which will not be soon forgotten. It is a book which leaves a mark, managing to stand out despite the popularity of the basic premise. There were particular portions of the memoir which were absolutely breath-taking, specifically a description of what life is like for an addict and how drugs are able to quiet the noise in her brain. Even through the humour though, there is something absolutely heart-breaking about Kucera's story. In an example pulled from her author's bio but which also appears in the novel Kucera writes about how she has never won anything:
When it comes to awards and recognition, she was once nominated for a Girl Scout sugar cookie award, but she never actually received the award because her father decided to stop at a bar instead of going to the award ceremony. Dina waited on the curb outside the bar, repeatedly saying to panhandlers, “Sorry. I don’t have any money. I’m seven.”
Kucera's memoir provides an informative and well-written look into life in a family of addicts and the terrible cycle that occurs as one generation gives rise to another with even worse addictions. With three daughters in various stages of recovery/relapse from various addictions, Kucera has experienced firsthand what can happen when a parent is unable to stay clean: it is what occurred to her afterall. She isn't afraid to hold herself responsible for her own role in her daughters' struggles, but at the same time she has finally accepted that recovery is an individual decision which every person has to make for themselves. It is a tragic yet powerful message which will ring true to anyone who has dealt with the consequences of addiction first hand, but it is also insightful for those who have not. Everything I Never Wanted To Be is a memoir filled with hope and tragedy, it is a story about succumbing to as well as beating the odds; ultimately it is a candid and extremely memorable look into the lives of one family and the adversity they have faced. ****
Everything I Never Wanted To Be is not a polished book- it is raw and gutsy and brutally honest. Kucera's words sear an imprint on the reader which will not be soon forgotten. It is a book which leaves a mark, managing to stand out despite the popularity of the basic premise. There were particular portions of the memoir which were absolutely breath-taking, specifically a description of what life is like for an addict and how drugs are able to quiet the noise in her brain. Even through the humour though, there is something absolutely heart-breaking about Kucera's story. In an example pulled from her author's bio but which also appears in the novel Kucera writes about how she has never won anything:
When it comes to awards and recognition, she was once nominated for a Girl Scout sugar cookie award, but she never actually received the award because her father decided to stop at a bar instead of going to the award ceremony. Dina waited on the curb outside the bar, repeatedly saying to panhandlers, “Sorry. I don’t have any money. I’m seven.”
Kucera's memoir provides an informative and well-written look into life in a family of addicts and the terrible cycle that occurs as one generation gives rise to another with even worse addictions. With three daughters in various stages of recovery/relapse from various addictions, Kucera has experienced firsthand what can happen when a parent is unable to stay clean: it is what occurred to her afterall. She isn't afraid to hold herself responsible for her own role in her daughters' struggles, but at the same time she has finally accepted that recovery is an individual decision which every person has to make for themselves. It is a tragic yet powerful message which will ring true to anyone who has dealt with the consequences of addiction first hand, but it is also insightful for those who have not. Everything I Never Wanted To Be is a memoir filled with hope and tragedy, it is a story about succumbing to as well as beating the odds; ultimately it is a candid and extremely memorable look into the lives of one family and the adversity they have faced. ****
jhscolloquium's review against another edition
4.0
Synopsis:
Dina Kucera is a stand-up comic. Reading a synopsis of her memoir, Everything I Never Wanted to Be, might make you wonder what she could possibly find funny about her life or her family’s problems and, therefore, where she gets material for her act. But the message of Everything I Never Wanted to Be is, in Kucera’s own words, that “with love and hope, anything is possible. It’s not easy … but possible.”
Kucera was raised in abject poverty in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She wanted to escape school, so made a deal with her science teacher. If she collected 50 bugs and displayed them on a poster board, the teacher agreed to give her a “D.” With straight “D’s,” she “graduated” from the ninth grade. Before long, she was pregnant with her first child, Jennifer. She lived with her parents and drove their van, delivering newspapers. Soon she was also joined by second daughter, April, as she completed her daily newspaper route.
She has also worked as a maid, bartender, waitress, and spent ten long, miserable years employed as a grocery store checker, primarily because the job provided stability for her family, as well as much-needed health insurance. With her second husband, John, to whom she has been married for twenty years, she had her youngest daughter, Carly. They all live in Phoenix, Arizona. Kucera cares not only for her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease and dementia, but April’s son, Moses, who has cerebral palsy.
Kucera is a recovering alcoholic. She has also battled her affinity for painkillers and endured the debilitating sorrow of seeing her own daughters battle alcoholism, drug addiction, self-harm (cutting), and abusive relationships. Through it all, Kucera never lost her faith, although she only recently resumed regular church membership.
Everything I Never Wanted to Be is a fascinating account of one family’s battle to survive.
Review:
Everything I Never Wanted to Be is an extremely difficult book to describe. It’s like trying to explain a roller coaster to someone who has never ridden one. You can attempt to depict the way your stomach lurches, the thrill of the wind in your face as the car speeds around the curves, and the overwhelming need to scream in anticipation as the car reaches the crest and is about to start its crazy descent to the bottom of the track. But until someone actually spends a few exhilarating moments on the ride, descriptions of the sensations experienced will never evoke complete comprehension or appreciation of the adventure.
Kucera’s story is both hysterically funny and completely heartbreaking. It’s a 204-page nail-biting, yet invigorating glimpse into one family’s journey through complete dysfunction, utter despair. And yet … they love each other, hold onto each other, have each other’s backs, and somehow manage to overcome each hurdle. So far. As Kucera makes clear, it is a one day at a time prospect. She talks about waves of good and bad times. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Some days are better than others. Eventually the bad times pass and periods of joy and happiness resume. So is her family really so different from anyone else’s?
Well … yes. In many ways, Kucera’s family is definitely unique. Her father was an alcoholic. One of six children, only one of her siblings has managed not to become an alcoholic. One of the most gut-wrenching childhood stories she relates involves her aborted effort to collect just one award. And she wasn’t even the only child upon whom the award was scheduled to be bestowed. Rather, the sugar cookie award was being given to each Girl Scout in her troop, but she never got to collect hers. En route to the meeting, her father parked her on a curb and went into a bar, coming out every hour or so to inquire if she was all right. She was seven, as she kept telling panhandlers who stopped and asked her for money.
Kucera’s eventual refusal to continue attending church with her family came about as a result of inappropriate behavior by the priest as a a teen-aged Kucera confessed. When she ran screaming from the church and told her parents what had happened, not only did they not believe her, they took her back to apologize to him. That she did not lose her faith entirely as a result of that incident is itself nothing short of a miracle, although it did take her years to figure out that it was the idea of church in general that she didn’t believe in. “God was a separate idea.” Eventually, she decided that the “Divine Order” refers to the fact that everything in your life is exactly as it is meant to be, conceptualizing the Divine Order as a goal. “Move toward the things in life that are good and kind and loving. And that may be the best we can do,” she writes.
Easier said than done when you are watching your teenage daughter slowly die before your eyes as a result of her heroin addiction. Or wondering where she is after she runs off again with her violent pusher boyfriend. Or boarding up the front windows of your house once you find her and bring her home again, because you fear that the pusher boyfriend will drive by and shoot out all the windows. Or begging and pleading an inpatient rehabilitation facility to admit your daughter yet again, hoping that this time the treatment will work and she will return home clean and sober — and stay that way.
Kucera’s writing is emotionally raw, her verbiage coarse. Often, the book reads almost like stream of consciousness ramblings because she does not relate the details of her family’s journey in a chronological, linear fashion. Rather, she strings together vignettes as they apparently meld together in her own memory bank, sometimes writing in past and other times in present tense. Always with her quirky, often self-deprecating sense of humor.
The best way to know if you’re making the right decision as a parent is to ask people who don’t have children. For some reason these people have the answer for every situation. They would do this, or they would do that. This wouldn’t have happened if you had done it this way. They’re the same people who say, “I don’t have any children, but I completely understand because I have a cat.”
Let me explain this loud and clear: having a car or a dog or a yak is nothing like having a child. you will never have to pay for drug rehab for your yak. I could not put my child in a create while I went to work. Actually, I could have, and looking back, I probably should have. But it’s illegal.
What is clear is that Kucera, despite all of her shortcomings — for which she feels plenty of remorse — loves her family and is determined to see them thrive. She would lay down her life for her daughters and, in fact, it’s come close to that more than once. She details her own addictions and unraveling under the weight of caring for all of them, trying to keep her girls, especially Carly, alive. What keeps Kucera from giving up? “[S]ometimes when I look at Carly and she smiles or laughs really hard, I see that little girl again. Just for a second, I remember. And it makes my heart happy.” Every parent knows precisely what Kucera means.
This is not a “happily ever after” story. As Everything I Never Wanted to Be draws to a close, Kucera has taken a leap of faith and quit her grocery checker job to write the book. Carly has left rehab and remained clean for six months, but April is still drinking. Kucera continues to care for her mother, and Moses, a very special little boy, is the light of all of their lives. Just like your family, mine, and every other family you know, they are carrying on. That’s all any of us can do.
I strongly recommend that this Thanksgiving weekend, you spend a few hours getting to know Dina Kucera and her family better. After all, Kucera quit her job and she needs to sell some books. I’m betting that after you read Everything I Never Wanted to Be, you will feel that you received a more than adequate return on your investment.
Dina Kucera is a stand-up comic. Reading a synopsis of her memoir, Everything I Never Wanted to Be, might make you wonder what she could possibly find funny about her life or her family’s problems and, therefore, where she gets material for her act. But the message of Everything I Never Wanted to Be is, in Kucera’s own words, that “with love and hope, anything is possible. It’s not easy … but possible.”
Kucera was raised in abject poverty in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She wanted to escape school, so made a deal with her science teacher. If she collected 50 bugs and displayed them on a poster board, the teacher agreed to give her a “D.” With straight “D’s,” she “graduated” from the ninth grade. Before long, she was pregnant with her first child, Jennifer. She lived with her parents and drove their van, delivering newspapers. Soon she was also joined by second daughter, April, as she completed her daily newspaper route.
She has also worked as a maid, bartender, waitress, and spent ten long, miserable years employed as a grocery store checker, primarily because the job provided stability for her family, as well as much-needed health insurance. With her second husband, John, to whom she has been married for twenty years, she had her youngest daughter, Carly. They all live in Phoenix, Arizona. Kucera cares not only for her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease and dementia, but April’s son, Moses, who has cerebral palsy.
Kucera is a recovering alcoholic. She has also battled her affinity for painkillers and endured the debilitating sorrow of seeing her own daughters battle alcoholism, drug addiction, self-harm (cutting), and abusive relationships. Through it all, Kucera never lost her faith, although she only recently resumed regular church membership.
Everything I Never Wanted to Be is a fascinating account of one family’s battle to survive.
Review:
Everything I Never Wanted to Be is an extremely difficult book to describe. It’s like trying to explain a roller coaster to someone who has never ridden one. You can attempt to depict the way your stomach lurches, the thrill of the wind in your face as the car speeds around the curves, and the overwhelming need to scream in anticipation as the car reaches the crest and is about to start its crazy descent to the bottom of the track. But until someone actually spends a few exhilarating moments on the ride, descriptions of the sensations experienced will never evoke complete comprehension or appreciation of the adventure.
Kucera’s story is both hysterically funny and completely heartbreaking. It’s a 204-page nail-biting, yet invigorating glimpse into one family’s journey through complete dysfunction, utter despair. And yet … they love each other, hold onto each other, have each other’s backs, and somehow manage to overcome each hurdle. So far. As Kucera makes clear, it is a one day at a time prospect. She talks about waves of good and bad times. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Some days are better than others. Eventually the bad times pass and periods of joy and happiness resume. So is her family really so different from anyone else’s?
Well … yes. In many ways, Kucera’s family is definitely unique. Her father was an alcoholic. One of six children, only one of her siblings has managed not to become an alcoholic. One of the most gut-wrenching childhood stories she relates involves her aborted effort to collect just one award. And she wasn’t even the only child upon whom the award was scheduled to be bestowed. Rather, the sugar cookie award was being given to each Girl Scout in her troop, but she never got to collect hers. En route to the meeting, her father parked her on a curb and went into a bar, coming out every hour or so to inquire if she was all right. She was seven, as she kept telling panhandlers who stopped and asked her for money.
Kucera’s eventual refusal to continue attending church with her family came about as a result of inappropriate behavior by the priest as a a teen-aged Kucera confessed. When she ran screaming from the church and told her parents what had happened, not only did they not believe her, they took her back to apologize to him. That she did not lose her faith entirely as a result of that incident is itself nothing short of a miracle, although it did take her years to figure out that it was the idea of church in general that she didn’t believe in. “God was a separate idea.” Eventually, she decided that the “Divine Order” refers to the fact that everything in your life is exactly as it is meant to be, conceptualizing the Divine Order as a goal. “Move toward the things in life that are good and kind and loving. And that may be the best we can do,” she writes.
Easier said than done when you are watching your teenage daughter slowly die before your eyes as a result of her heroin addiction. Or wondering where she is after she runs off again with her violent pusher boyfriend. Or boarding up the front windows of your house once you find her and bring her home again, because you fear that the pusher boyfriend will drive by and shoot out all the windows. Or begging and pleading an inpatient rehabilitation facility to admit your daughter yet again, hoping that this time the treatment will work and she will return home clean and sober — and stay that way.
Kucera’s writing is emotionally raw, her verbiage coarse. Often, the book reads almost like stream of consciousness ramblings because she does not relate the details of her family’s journey in a chronological, linear fashion. Rather, she strings together vignettes as they apparently meld together in her own memory bank, sometimes writing in past and other times in present tense. Always with her quirky, often self-deprecating sense of humor.
The best way to know if you’re making the right decision as a parent is to ask people who don’t have children. For some reason these people have the answer for every situation. They would do this, or they would do that. This wouldn’t have happened if you had done it this way. They’re the same people who say, “I don’t have any children, but I completely understand because I have a cat.”
Let me explain this loud and clear: having a car or a dog or a yak is nothing like having a child. you will never have to pay for drug rehab for your yak. I could not put my child in a create while I went to work. Actually, I could have, and looking back, I probably should have. But it’s illegal.
What is clear is that Kucera, despite all of her shortcomings — for which she feels plenty of remorse — loves her family and is determined to see them thrive. She would lay down her life for her daughters and, in fact, it’s come close to that more than once. She details her own addictions and unraveling under the weight of caring for all of them, trying to keep her girls, especially Carly, alive. What keeps Kucera from giving up? “[S]ometimes when I look at Carly and she smiles or laughs really hard, I see that little girl again. Just for a second, I remember. And it makes my heart happy.” Every parent knows precisely what Kucera means.
This is not a “happily ever after” story. As Everything I Never Wanted to Be draws to a close, Kucera has taken a leap of faith and quit her grocery checker job to write the book. Carly has left rehab and remained clean for six months, but April is still drinking. Kucera continues to care for her mother, and Moses, a very special little boy, is the light of all of their lives. Just like your family, mine, and every other family you know, they are carrying on. That’s all any of us can do.
I strongly recommend that this Thanksgiving weekend, you spend a few hours getting to know Dina Kucera and her family better. After all, Kucera quit her job and she needs to sell some books. I’m betting that after you read Everything I Never Wanted to Be, you will feel that you received a more than adequate return on your investment.
athira's review against another edition
4.0
How often do you complain that you wish life was better? I've thought it every time I get stuck in the doldrums, but I know that it's just a minor blip. What if your whole life is one big never-ending blip? What if you wake up every day only to find that the nightmare of last night is not really over? That pretty much sums up the sentiment expressed in Dina Kucera's memoir, Everything I Never Wanted to be. When I first received this title, I was expecting a depressing read about a family's battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. It doesn't help that the cover conveyed the same impression.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Dina Kucera's life is a mess. I don't think she will mind that I wrote that, because she uses more intense words in the 204 page memoir. When I say mess, I mean, she was an alcoholic, though sober for a few years now. Her husband was a pot-addict, also sober for a few years now. Her mother has Parkinson's, her grandmother was addicted to Xanax. Her three daughters are fighting off various additions - the eldest, Jennifer is both an alcoholic and a drug-addict; her second, April entertained neither until a life trauma sent her to alcohol for relief; the third, Carly, was a heroin addict at age 13. In addition, Dina's grandson, Moses, has cerebral palsy.
Does that sound like a family you would see on greeting card websites or as a success story poster for any kind of organization? I was shocked to read the vices that plagued this family. Carly's drug addiction tore me the most. She used meth to get off heroin and heroin to get off meth. No matter how many rehabs she went to, she kept returning to the drugs. Being a very anti-drug person, it took me some time to understand Carly's obsession. Dina shares with us four letters that Carly wrote. She starts with a letter in which sixteen-year old Carly expresses her desire to die. By the time, we read Carly's third letter, which she wrote at the age of six, the reader is well-versed in Carly's addiction. The innocence of the third letter made me very sad. How did such a girl go to full-blown addiction by the time she was thirteen?
Dina writes her memoir in a tone typical of stand-up comedians. I don't watch many stand-up comedies, I find my grey cells process jokes too slow. As a result, it took me about 50 pages to "accept" Dina's style of writing. It was definitely easy prose, in fact, a very engaging one. After page 50, I found that I didn't want to put the book down at all. But until then, I found her sarcasm too cruel, whether it was directed at herself or her extended family, or her own mom or her husband's twin. It was just her way of narrating the darkness in her life. It was her therapy. Towards the end, she explains that in a life as messed up as her own, humor's the only way she can get through her day. And when you turn page after page and get a feel that her nightmare doesn't seem to near a possible end at all, you understand. Humor becomes your means to navigate through pile after pile of horrors.
That doesn't mean I agreed with her at all times. The author frequently says that no one "gets" it, that only someone who has been through what she has will actually understand her hardships. She rants against the rich people, the other parents (whose children don't do drugs), and anyone who's not a parent. All such people in Dina's life have either offered her unhelpful advice or turned their noses up at her. Hard and traumatic as those experiences have been to her, I feel that generalization is a very dangerous tool. It's the one thing that creates so much bias in the world today. And since I am not a parent myself, I felt offended many times, reading those passages. I'm not even going to begin narrating the what-would-I-do's, I know fully well that many times I've done the opposite of what I've proclaimed. But I don't believe that not being in a situation makes you any less empathetic than you are.
Dina Kucera clearly has a lot of regrets. She has even listed out the terrible mistakes she made as a parent - the kind of mistakes that anyone would go aghast at. But her boldness in admitting them and her intense wish that she could go back and change them feel very honest. Despite my disagreements with her, towards the end, I was rooting so much for her and wishing that the nastier aspects at least mellowed down. For all her mistakes, I think she is one incredible woman for trying to do all she can for her family - even iron out their problems. And did I mention her husband? Although he isn't mentioned too much in this book, I have to say I loved this guy for all he did for his family too. In the end, although the elements explored in this book are tragic, this book is definitely not a depressing read. Instead, what you get is a tremendous amount of hope. Dina writes a very uplifting story amidst and about all the ruins around her. I could take a writing class from her. In addition, it is also a powerful call for help of the drug-addicted teens, who need help not prison to help knock off their habits.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Dina Kucera's life is a mess. I don't think she will mind that I wrote that, because she uses more intense words in the 204 page memoir. When I say mess, I mean, she was an alcoholic, though sober for a few years now. Her husband was a pot-addict, also sober for a few years now. Her mother has Parkinson's, her grandmother was addicted to Xanax. Her three daughters are fighting off various additions - the eldest, Jennifer is both an alcoholic and a drug-addict; her second, April entertained neither until a life trauma sent her to alcohol for relief; the third, Carly, was a heroin addict at age 13. In addition, Dina's grandson, Moses, has cerebral palsy.
Does that sound like a family you would see on greeting card websites or as a success story poster for any kind of organization? I was shocked to read the vices that plagued this family. Carly's drug addiction tore me the most. She used meth to get off heroin and heroin to get off meth. No matter how many rehabs she went to, she kept returning to the drugs. Being a very anti-drug person, it took me some time to understand Carly's obsession. Dina shares with us four letters that Carly wrote. She starts with a letter in which sixteen-year old Carly expresses her desire to die. By the time, we read Carly's third letter, which she wrote at the age of six, the reader is well-versed in Carly's addiction. The innocence of the third letter made me very sad. How did such a girl go to full-blown addiction by the time she was thirteen?
Dina writes her memoir in a tone typical of stand-up comedians. I don't watch many stand-up comedies, I find my grey cells process jokes too slow. As a result, it took me about 50 pages to "accept" Dina's style of writing. It was definitely easy prose, in fact, a very engaging one. After page 50, I found that I didn't want to put the book down at all. But until then, I found her sarcasm too cruel, whether it was directed at herself or her extended family, or her own mom or her husband's twin. It was just her way of narrating the darkness in her life. It was her therapy. Towards the end, she explains that in a life as messed up as her own, humor's the only way she can get through her day. And when you turn page after page and get a feel that her nightmare doesn't seem to near a possible end at all, you understand. Humor becomes your means to navigate through pile after pile of horrors.
That doesn't mean I agreed with her at all times. The author frequently says that no one "gets" it, that only someone who has been through what she has will actually understand her hardships. She rants against the rich people, the other parents (whose children don't do drugs), and anyone who's not a parent. All such people in Dina's life have either offered her unhelpful advice or turned their noses up at her. Hard and traumatic as those experiences have been to her, I feel that generalization is a very dangerous tool. It's the one thing that creates so much bias in the world today. And since I am not a parent myself, I felt offended many times, reading those passages. I'm not even going to begin narrating the what-would-I-do's, I know fully well that many times I've done the opposite of what I've proclaimed. But I don't believe that not being in a situation makes you any less empathetic than you are.
Dina Kucera clearly has a lot of regrets. She has even listed out the terrible mistakes she made as a parent - the kind of mistakes that anyone would go aghast at. But her boldness in admitting them and her intense wish that she could go back and change them feel very honest. Despite my disagreements with her, towards the end, I was rooting so much for her and wishing that the nastier aspects at least mellowed down. For all her mistakes, I think she is one incredible woman for trying to do all she can for her family - even iron out their problems. And did I mention her husband? Although he isn't mentioned too much in this book, I have to say I loved this guy for all he did for his family too. In the end, although the elements explored in this book are tragic, this book is definitely not a depressing read. Instead, what you get is a tremendous amount of hope. Dina writes a very uplifting story amidst and about all the ruins around her. I could take a writing class from her. In addition, it is also a powerful call for help of the drug-addicted teens, who need help not prison to help knock off their habits.
hdbblog's review against another edition
4.0
To say that this book was a difficult read would be a complete lie. Although the content of Dina Kucera's book can sometimes be a bit rough, it is written so perfectly that I honestly couldn't put it down. She has found the perfect recipe for this memoir. A healthy dose of hope, a pinch of religion, and a heaping helping of humor. Combined, these create an unforgettable journey for the reader.
What struck me most about Everything I Never Wanted to Be was the brutal honesty that is within these pages. Kucera pours her memories onto the page, bearing her soul for the reader. I'll admit that at times it was a bit overwhelming and I was in tears. I kept wondering how one person could go through so much pain and anger in their lifetime. However the one message that kept shining through was hope. No matter what else happens, you have to have that hope or you'll drown under the sadness. I think even those of us who aren't going through supporting an ailing loved one can appreciate this message.
It was the humor in this book that really helped me make it through though. Despite everything that she had been through, Kucera always seemed to find some sort of humor in the smaller things to help her get by. My favorite part was at the very beginning, when she describes a normal day out with her three daughters. As they each bicker and moan in their own illness motivated ways, I had to laugh. It wasn't that it was funny that they were arguing, but more that we all know that happens in life. You just have to appreciate the time together and move on. It was a wake up call to me, reminding me that you can choose to take the good or the bad away with you from any situation. Dina Kucera asks us, why not make an effort to choose the good?
This story is about the wisdom that comes through hardship, about beating the odds when it seems impossible. It is the type of story that has the opportunity to change lives. I can't even put into words what reading this book meant to me. I only hope more people out there, parents especially, take the time to read it.
What struck me most about Everything I Never Wanted to Be was the brutal honesty that is within these pages. Kucera pours her memories onto the page, bearing her soul for the reader. I'll admit that at times it was a bit overwhelming and I was in tears. I kept wondering how one person could go through so much pain and anger in their lifetime. However the one message that kept shining through was hope. No matter what else happens, you have to have that hope or you'll drown under the sadness. I think even those of us who aren't going through supporting an ailing loved one can appreciate this message.
It was the humor in this book that really helped me make it through though. Despite everything that she had been through, Kucera always seemed to find some sort of humor in the smaller things to help her get by. My favorite part was at the very beginning, when she describes a normal day out with her three daughters. As they each bicker and moan in their own illness motivated ways, I had to laugh. It wasn't that it was funny that they were arguing, but more that we all know that happens in life. You just have to appreciate the time together and move on. It was a wake up call to me, reminding me that you can choose to take the good or the bad away with you from any situation. Dina Kucera asks us, why not make an effort to choose the good?
This story is about the wisdom that comes through hardship, about beating the odds when it seems impossible. It is the type of story that has the opportunity to change lives. I can't even put into words what reading this book meant to me. I only hope more people out there, parents especially, take the time to read it.
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