a very easy read, until the final chapters

De Beauvoir beautifully balances her feeling of emotional detachment and an ever present connection to her late mother. Even before her passing we see how she has already come to terms with her mother’s inevitable death.

“It is useless to try to integrate life and death and to behave rationally in the presence of something that is not rational: each must manage as well as he can in the tumult of his feelings. I can understand all last wishes and the total absence of them: the hugging of the bones or the abandonment of the body of the one you love to the common grave.”

75/100

É massa como a Simone consegue escrever sobre algo sem se deixar levar pelas emoções, ainda que ela sinalize cada uma delas. Ela põe na própria escrita o afastamento/ estranhamento de ver sua mãe morrer, é excelente. Único livro de mommy issues possível.
Não é engraçado, mas eu me diverti todas as vezes que o Sartre fez um cameo.

The book was soooo gooooood. I didn't expect that at all. I actually thought I'll hate it...IDK why but I just thought that.
But then I loved everything about it. It was full of emotions..real and brutal ones.
And her mom and their relationship reminded me a lot of me and my mom.
Some of her mom's attitude and suffering reminded me of my mom and it made me understand her in a better way. I think this is one of these books that I'll keep on thinking about and remember for a very looooong time.

A very honest account of a parent slowly declining in the hospital and eventually dying, and the mixed feelings that come with a situation like that. I liked the story but didn’t always love the writing style.