A Christian history professor recounts a difficult emotional journey after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, recounting her experience grappling with the question: How do we create meaning in our lives as we race against the clock?
Bowler’s affecting narrative meditates on the things she’s just faced; she also takes it as an opportunity to reflect on the past and the kind of life she wants for herself in the future. Bowler writes about all of it with good humor, occasional anger, and vivid honesty ... fresh insight on life and chronic illness ... General readers will be engrossed by this heartfelt memoir of sickness, family, and recovery. The table that serves as an appendix of complicated truths is worth the price of the book.
Bowler’s prose is adept at capturing the dialectic of life’s 'splendid, ragged edges' showing through. And she’s funny, too. This is a gem for cancer patients and their families and for survivors, but really, for anyone who understands the terror and beauty of being human.
Bowler debunks the hollow clichés that she has heard too often: to seize the day, live in the present, work on a bucket list ... Like others who have suffered traumatic loss or illness—especially during the pandemic—Bowler recognizes that 'so often the experiences that define us are the ones we didn’t pick.' A sensitive memoir of survival.
