PositiveArtsHubGilbert’s ruminations are brutally self-critical, but leave little breathing space for the reader to reflect and learn. Reflexivity is an important skill for the memoir writer, and while Gilbert excels in the self-analysis portion, she is less adept in the ways in which her story may spark broader lessons ... Gilbert also has an idiosyncratic spiritualist ethos which will not resonate with all readers. She frequently converses with a responsive God and communes with the dead ... Despite a few misgivings, Gilbert tells an honest, engrossing story of an unexpected love. She tells the story of an unstoic death while deftly interweaving the ecstasies and dangers of intimacy.
