A easy read but with thought-provoking themes.
Ailsa Rea is twenty-eight years old and has just received a long-awaited heart transplant. Since her first heart operation when she was a new-born baby, followed by several more in the intervening years, her life has been far from normal because her congenital heart problem has placed increasingly severe restrictions on what she has been able to do. She has always been well supported by her mother, who became a single parent when her partner could not face life with a baby who was expected to die, and has a good circle of caring friends. However, even whilst often railing against them, she has always had to accept the restrictions her condition has imposed on her life. She thought that a new heart would allow her to live the life she has always longed for so feels confused and vulnerable when she discovers that she is finding it difficult to cope with this second chance.
Prior to the transplant Ailsa had started a blog as a way of coping with her own feelings, as well as informing people of what it was like to live with a life-threatening condition. She had made a list of things she wanted to achieve but, not being used to being able to make decisions for herself, she finds herself fearful now that she is free to do so. She has little confidence in her ability to either decide what is important, or how to go about reaching her goals. Her solution is to use her blog to poll her followers on her struggles with decision-making. She puts forward various options and then accepts the decision of the majority vote. However, albeit it in a different way, this just reinforces her dependence on other people. She needs to start trusting herself – and her new heart – to be strong enough to face an independent future.
This story is told through two different timelines and a combination of third-person narrative, blog entries and emails. This style enables the reader to gain insights into how Ailsa is thinking and feeling about the challenges she has faced in the past, as well as the unexpectedly complex ones she is facing once given the chance to live a more “normal” life. I thought that this technique was well handled by the author and that it very effectively demonstrated the character’s growing awareness of other people’s needs and struggles. When your needs have always had to take precedence, to be the absolute focus for those in charge of caring for you, how do you learn to let go of this and learn to take their needs and the needs of others into account – in effect, to finally become an adult rather than a dependent child. This was something Ailsa had never had to do before, other than with a friend who had died whilst waiting for a transplant.
Ailsa’s relationship with her mother, Hayley, had always been close but Hayley too must find ways of renegotiating her necessarily protective relationship with her daughter, a process which is made even more complicated because she has always been reluctant to tell Ailsa very much about her biological father and the circumstances surrounding his desertion. This is something which has often caused conflict in the past but, with Ailsa’s new need to assert her independence and discover who she really is, must now be resolved, without irrevocably damaging the mother/daughter relationship. For me this was a strand of the story which was particularly well handled, capturing the huge shifts the two characters needed to make in order to forge an adult to adult relationship; their individual struggles with this were very sensitively and convincingly portrayed.
I enjoyed the insights the story provided into chronic illness and living with the constant threat of imminent death, followed by the adjustments, both physical and emotional, to a life which on the surface is more normal but is not the “normal” of people who have never needed to focus so obsessively on their health. I also liked the strong message which ran throughout the book about the desperate need for more people to be encouraged to register with the NHS Organ Donation Register – and to let relatives know that they have done so. If the plea for a change in the law, allowing for an “opt out” system isn’t implemented, then the least that should happen is that an individual’s decision to register to donate their organs should not, at the time of their death, be allowed to be overridden by relatives. This shows such a profound lack of respect for the decision made by the would-be donor. I believe that not only is it is a disgrace that it is possible for this to happen, but also that it is profoundly unfair to put grieving relatives in such a difficult position. With so many people dying because of a lack of organs this is a problem which, as a civilised society, we really do need to confront.
This is a story which is full of warmth, sensitivity and humour but, in some respects, it is told in a somewhat “chick-lit” style and there were moments when I found this rather too superficial – occasionally even irritating! Having recently read “Lost for Words” I was looking forward to this next novel by Stephanie Butland because one of the strengths of that book was the nuanced depth she brought to each of her characters. In this latest story I was disappointed that the characterisations were considerably less complex and this is what has influenced my three-star rating of the book as a personal read. However, my appreciation of the thought-provoking nature of the themes which would make this a good choice for reading groups has at least enabled me to award it four stars in that category!
Many thanks to Readers’ First and Bonnier Zaffre for copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Prior to the transplant Ailsa had started a blog as a way of coping with her own feelings, as well as informing people of what it was like to live with a life-threatening condition. She had made a list of things she wanted to achieve but, not being used to being able to make decisions for herself, she finds herself fearful now that she is free to do so. She has little confidence in her ability to either decide what is important, or how to go about reaching her goals. Her solution is to use her blog to poll her followers on her struggles with decision-making. She puts forward various options and then accepts the decision of the majority vote. However, albeit it in a different way, this just reinforces her dependence on other people. She needs to start trusting herself – and her new heart – to be strong enough to face an independent future.
This story is told through two different timelines and a combination of third-person narrative, blog entries and emails. This style enables the reader to gain insights into how Ailsa is thinking and feeling about the challenges she has faced in the past, as well as the unexpectedly complex ones she is facing once given the chance to live a more “normal” life. I thought that this technique was well handled by the author and that it very effectively demonstrated the character’s growing awareness of other people’s needs and struggles. When your needs have always had to take precedence, to be the absolute focus for those in charge of caring for you, how do you learn to let go of this and learn to take their needs and the needs of others into account – in effect, to finally become an adult rather than a dependent child. This was something Ailsa had never had to do before, other than with a friend who had died whilst waiting for a transplant.
Ailsa’s relationship with her mother, Hayley, had always been close but Hayley too must find ways of renegotiating her necessarily protective relationship with her daughter, a process which is made even more complicated because she has always been reluctant to tell Ailsa very much about her biological father and the circumstances surrounding his desertion. This is something which has often caused conflict in the past but, with Ailsa’s new need to assert her independence and discover who she really is, must now be resolved, without irrevocably damaging the mother/daughter relationship. For me this was a strand of the story which was particularly well handled, capturing the huge shifts the two characters needed to make in order to forge an adult to adult relationship; their individual struggles with this were very sensitively and convincingly portrayed.
I enjoyed the insights the story provided into chronic illness and living with the constant threat of imminent death, followed by the adjustments, both physical and emotional, to a life which on the surface is more normal but is not the “normal” of people who have never needed to focus so obsessively on their health. I also liked the strong message which ran throughout the book about the desperate need for more people to be encouraged to register with the NHS Organ Donation Register – and to let relatives know that they have done so. If the plea for a change in the law, allowing for an “opt out” system isn’t implemented, then the least that should happen is that an individual’s decision to register to donate their organs should not, at the time of their death, be allowed to be overridden by relatives. This shows such a profound lack of respect for the decision made by the would-be donor. I believe that not only is it is a disgrace that it is possible for this to happen, but also that it is profoundly unfair to put grieving relatives in such a difficult position. With so many people dying because of a lack of organs this is a problem which, as a civilised society, we really do need to confront.
This is a story which is full of warmth, sensitivity and humour but, in some respects, it is told in a somewhat “chick-lit” style and there were moments when I found this rather too superficial – occasionally even irritating! Having recently read “Lost for Words” I was looking forward to this next novel by Stephanie Butland because one of the strengths of that book was the nuanced depth she brought to each of her characters. In this latest story I was disappointed that the characterisations were considerably less complex and this is what has influenced my three-star rating of the book as a personal read. However, my appreciation of the thought-provoking nature of the themes which would make this a good choice for reading groups has at least enabled me to award it four stars in that category!
Many thanks to Readers’ First and Bonnier Zaffre for copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.