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inthecommonhours's review
I didn’t intentionally read three memoirs in a row about losing a partner and grief. In the brain fog of COVID, I thought Delia Ephron’s short memoir might work. I had a physical copy I bought at Parnassus last summer.
Delia writes in a personable, easy-to-follow manner. While she briefly touched on the loss of her sister Nora and the final days with Jerry, her husband of 35 years, it is mostly the story of second-chance love at age 72 and her own cancer battle.
Maybe because there are elements of Delia that remind me of myself, I often found myself critical of her. Maybe that was partly caused by being in my own uncomfortable feverish state. Also, despite seeing photos of her and Peter online, I find it hard to believe such a perfect man exists. May every 70-some-year-old be so lucky!
Delia writes in a personable, easy-to-follow manner. While she briefly touched on the loss of her sister Nora and the final days with Jerry, her husband of 35 years, it is mostly the story of second-chance love at age 72 and her own cancer battle.
Maybe because there are elements of Delia that remind me of myself, I often found myself critical of her. Maybe that was partly caused by being in my own uncomfortable feverish state. Also, despite seeing photos of her and Peter online, I find it hard to believe such a perfect man exists. May every 70-some-year-old be so lucky!
mariahcooke's review against another edition
4.0
What a beautiful real life story of bravery, and love
4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Delia Ephron is known for her books and movies, including some of my favorites like You’ve Got Mail.
This is her memoir about her later years in life that cover some incredibly heavy topics, but also tell us about her second chance at love. She lost her husband to cancer and then a few years later reconnected with a man she knew in college. They had a love affair like teenagers that was so fun to read about!
However, she then ended up getting cancer herself and this book talks about that in full! It shows the ugly side of the treatment, but also shows all the people who surrounded Delia in that time and how her new husband stood by her in a beautiful way.
While this book was heavy and very sad at some part it was also beautiful and it shows that you can fall in love again at any age!
4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Delia Ephron is known for her books and movies, including some of my favorites like You’ve Got Mail.
This is her memoir about her later years in life that cover some incredibly heavy topics, but also tell us about her second chance at love. She lost her husband to cancer and then a few years later reconnected with a man she knew in college. They had a love affair like teenagers that was so fun to read about!
However, she then ended up getting cancer herself and this book talks about that in full! It shows the ugly side of the treatment, but also shows all the people who surrounded Delia in that time and how her new husband stood by her in a beautiful way.
While this book was heavy and very sad at some part it was also beautiful and it shows that you can fall in love again at any age!
amshea's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
Listened to audiobook. Found myself getting annoyed and rolling my eyes at parts. Privileged perspective. Anxiety and neuroticism annoying to hear. Loved the first part of the book about grieving her husband and lost interest after
sunrisesara's review
4.0
I liked the raw honesty even though I had a hard time relating to her life.
realisticreader98's review
5.0
✨a second chance at love, a second chance at life, this story was an absolutely amazing recounting of delia ephron losing her husband jerry, finding her husband peter, and surviving AML—a rare form of leukemia that had also taken the life of her older sister, nora, just a few years before delia’s diagnosis.
✨this book reallllly triggered my health anxieties. every single one. but reading it in a public place (work during my lunch breaks) forced me to learn how to regulate myself. which also made me realize that I need to learn how to be better at emotional regulation. Lol.
✨I had a few favorite parts but this one really stuck out to me (anxiety lol):
“The anatomy of what happens to each of us is shadowed and affected by what came before, and I was conditioned as a child to live with fear and worry. My brain knows that place. It gravitates toward it no matter how bright the lights or the love and health… [talks about her friend Julia whose husband has Parkinson’s and isn’t doing well] It’s been brutal, and she suffers too, but anxiety is not home for her. Terror isn’t a childhood friend. She can experience terror and let it go. But I am conditioned. My brain gives terror a home.”
✨YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Delia is such an anxious girl, pessimist, etc. and this part above realllllllly hit home. so… go read this book!
✨this book reallllly triggered my health anxieties. every single one. but reading it in a public place (work during my lunch breaks) forced me to learn how to regulate myself. which also made me realize that I need to learn how to be better at emotional regulation. Lol.
✨I had a few favorite parts but this one really stuck out to me (anxiety lol):
“The anatomy of what happens to each of us is shadowed and affected by what came before, and I was conditioned as a child to live with fear and worry. My brain knows that place. It gravitates toward it no matter how bright the lights or the love and health… [talks about her friend Julia whose husband has Parkinson’s and isn’t doing well] It’s been brutal, and she suffers too, but anxiety is not home for her. Terror isn’t a childhood friend. She can experience terror and let it go. But I am conditioned. My brain gives terror a home.”
✨YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Delia is such an anxious girl, pessimist, etc. and this part above realllllllly hit home. so… go read this book!
discoveringpeace's review
5.0
I’m so grateful for audiobooks. I couldn’t possibly have read this through all my tears. Suspenseful. Heart-wrenching. Agonizing. Hopeful. A lingering ache—it’s impossible to believe such pain can live alongside such enduring love and beauty. What a life.
Absolutely beautiful.
“No one can truly know the answer to the question, What will you do when you lose the person you love?”
“The silence in the apartment is loud.”
“Now he wasn't going to be here to love me or to talk to me. To have conversations with me about everything.
Stuff. What was on his mind.”
“He was my true home. My first safe place.”
“I've gotten to make my living by my imagination. That's a lovely thing.”
Absolutely beautiful.
“No one can truly know the answer to the question, What will you do when you lose the person you love?”
“The silence in the apartment is loud.”
“Now he wasn't going to be here to love me or to talk to me. To have conversations with me about everything.
Stuff. What was on his mind.”
“He was my true home. My first safe place.”
“I've gotten to make my living by my imagination. That's a lovely thing.”