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The Still Point Of The Turning World (2013)

by Emily Rapp(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1594205124 (ISBN13: 9781594205125)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

The Penguin Press HC

review 1: It is difficult to rate a memoir, but the two stars is not for the author's grief or her son or, as another reviewer said, "for the author's strength of character or difficult situation". The two stars is because I felt that even just halfway through the book she had said everything she wanted to say several times and that she conveys anger and bitterness even though she says she's not. She repeated several times in several different ways that her son would never experience the cares and anxieties of the world because he would never developmentally arrive at that point in his life. My biggest bone was this, though: she repeated several times in several different ways that no one, except those mothers whose children had the same disease, could understand what she was going ... morethrough. Yes, that is true. However, she simultaneously rejects any sympathy offered from her friends and strangers, going as far as saying that what others said was stupid and trite. It doesn't seem to matter to her that anyone who hasn't experienced exactly the same thing can have genuine feelings and love in their hearts to offer. Sympathy and empathy are two very different things, but both have their place and both come from the same emotion. I am a mother and though my children do not have a life-threatening disease. I believe I love them just as much as Rapp loves her son. I also believe that because I know how much I love them, I also have an inkling of how much I would grieve if one of them died, especially at such an early age. The bond I share with each of my children began at conception and is no less relevant or important than Rapp's for her son, and yet I felt she threw that in my face and said, "You don't know what it's really like to love your child because yours is still alive."Consequently, my reaction to this book was two-fold: 1. I grieve for Rapp and her son and I have a hard time imagining how I would deal with the same situation. The situation is heart-breaking, yet I know that we all deal with our own trials in different ways and we all deal with whatever comes our way because we have to.2. Rapp published a memoir about herself and her own bitterness at the world, not a memoir about her son.
review 2: Make no mistake, this is not an easy book to read. It is a glaring, unflinching account of the worst thing that could happen to any parent: watching, helplessly, as your baby slowly dies. Yes, it is a tragic story, beyond sad; but Rapp doesn't mourn, she RAGES.This is, at its heart, a very angry book. There are moments of luminous beauty, but as a whole, it is a memoir of one woman's white-hot, incandescent fury at the world and everyone in it. Rapp seethes at anyone who offers sympathy; "I'm so sorry" or "You're so amazing; I don't know how you're doing it" or "I can't imagine what you're going through" make her positively apoplectic with rage. If you're someone who might stumble for the right words and come up lacking (and at such a time, every phrase is lacking), Rapp is talking about you. Certainly, she is talking about me; I would say, "I'm so sorry," and I would mean it, and she would be enraged.I don't hold this against her; paralyzingly sadness and bubbling fury seem like the only appropriate responses to such an event. But it doesn't make for a terribly engaging read; it's uncomfortable, like standing at a party and trying NOT to look at the woman who's shrieking at her husband in the corner.I applaud her for writing such an honest account of her experience, for not pulling back and trying to soften it to make a prettier picture: a Monet instead of a Pollack. I'm not sorry to have read it, but I'm also not sure that I'd recommend it to a friend. less

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