Fuller leaves nothing under the table, under the rug or under wraps ... The last thing you expect to do when you read a book about a child dying is to laugh ... The wit in this memoir is soul-piercing ... Fuller is sagacious and perspicacious. She is a sublime writer. In the hands of another memoirist, the story of Fi might be unbearably sad, but this book is a mesmeric celebration of a boy who died too soon, a mother’s love and her resilience. It will help others surviving loss — surviving life.
A book that is as hard to pick up as it is to put down — a gutting, terrifying, profound and defiantly enthralling read ... By its end, I was moved and devastated yet somehow strengthened.
A seductive read about unrelenting agony. Self-effacing, wise and dry, the author’s style may be described as "frenetic lyric" ... In this finely observed account of her breakage and imperfect repair, Ms. Fuller describes the state of her life after Fi’s death.
Life writers often want to be likable, for readers to sit beside them and empathise. Fuller’s not in that camp: rawly bereft, she doesn’t care how she comes across.
Her writing is always a knife pointed straight at the heart, but the subtractions her new book chronicles give it something more like blunt force ... Fuller’s fight for survival is against odds no parent should have to face, and it is unpadded and harsh. It means coming to terms with a loss Fuller is unsure she can handle without Fi to guide her. Fi is concerned with finding a way
Fuller's prose is raw, primal, and electric, pulling the reader into both her shock and her attempts to carry on with a heart cleaved in two. Readers who are experiencing their own grief will find solace here, while those who've been following Fuller for years through her beautifully written memoirs will want to be with her as she recounts this tragedy.
Brave ... The writing is so stunning, immediate, and heartfelt that the book is often as difficult to read as it is to put down. A true marvel of a memoir, simultaneously beautiful and devastating.
