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A review by ms_tiahmarie
It Rains in February: A Wife's Memoir of Love and Loss by Leila Summers
25% - I have been avoiding this book despite buying it ages ago. Suicide is an all too real event in my family tree. As are affairs, alcoholism, depression, paranoia and a host of other complications. All of which are pouring themselves into my current ms, in their own way. So perhaps the fact that I could write my own fictional tale that is so downright sorrowful made me feel brave enough to give it ago.
25percent in and I am still fine. The writing is the best I have ever read for a self-published work.
I cannot, however, fathom having the author's...I'm not sure the words. Never say never, and nobody really knows how they will act unless in their shoes. But telling my own husband about this book he was in no doubt that I would not be as - charitable? - as this woman is. She married a man whom she clearly loved dearly. So it feels awful to say how much I want to reach out there, through the pages, and smack him across the face.
Depression is a disease and not one to be trifled with. No two people handle the same challenges or diseases the same. I know. But even in depression there are choices, as limited as they may be. I am not discussing the end of the man's life, but in his actions to torment his very own wife. To keep speaking of his love to the woman who loves him, and the two are not the same.
I keep wondering where his parents, her parents are in this book. Perhaps in the further 78 percent. What is spooky is how much the two of our stories, her's sadly personal fact, mine fiction, overlap. Even in vast differences, some feelings are universal.
But he bugs me. I want to scream at him for the pain he seemingly selfishly inflicts. At what point is it the depression and the other the self indulgent attitude of which he displayed from the moments of their first courtship? I suppose there is no clear line.
I was relieved she saw somebody for her own head. The need to love oneself. I wanted to cheer at this. Because that is exactly the problem in the dynamic, and one I see so often between the depressed and the carer of - that the love for the self, the love to say 'I have feelings too' seems to get shoved aside for the singular goal of keeping the other together. Yet...you can't do it for them. That is the hardest lesson to learn when being around the depressed. Ultimately it is the choice to get help or not.
I hope by the end of the book (or at the end of her journey to reach this point where she can publish such a book) she has found a love for herself.
- Reached the end, and not much I said from above changed. It is beautifully written, sad and does raise a number of issues. The man had problems and there are reasons for his problems. But he was abusive to his wife. He had choices: to take or not take the drugs that could have helped him, to have found a therapist rather than use his wife as one and so on. He may not have been able to help his disease, but there were choices within that framework that he chose, and the fault of those choices lies with him. But nothing is as simple as that.
25percent in and I am still fine. The writing is the best I have ever read for a self-published work.
I cannot, however, fathom having the author's...I'm not sure the words. Never say never, and nobody really knows how they will act unless in their shoes. But telling my own husband about this book he was in no doubt that I would not be as - charitable? - as this woman is. She married a man whom she clearly loved dearly. So it feels awful to say how much I want to reach out there, through the pages, and smack him across the face.
Depression is a disease and not one to be trifled with. No two people handle the same challenges or diseases the same. I know. But even in depression there are choices, as limited as they may be. I am not discussing the end of the man's life, but in his actions to torment his very own wife. To keep speaking of his love to the woman who loves him, and the two are not the same.
I keep wondering where his parents, her parents are in this book. Perhaps in the further 78 percent. What is spooky is how much the two of our stories, her's sadly personal fact, mine fiction, overlap. Even in vast differences, some feelings are universal.
But he bugs me. I want to scream at him for the pain he seemingly selfishly inflicts. At what point is it the depression and the other the self indulgent attitude of which he displayed from the moments of their first courtship? I suppose there is no clear line.
I was relieved she saw somebody for her own head. The need to love oneself. I wanted to cheer at this. Because that is exactly the problem in the dynamic, and one I see so often between the depressed and the carer of - that the love for the self, the love to say 'I have feelings too' seems to get shoved aside for the singular goal of keeping the other together. Yet...you can't do it for them. That is the hardest lesson to learn when being around the depressed. Ultimately it is the choice to get help or not.
I hope by the end of the book (or at the end of her journey to reach this point where she can publish such a book) she has found a love for herself.
- Reached the end, and not much I said from above changed. It is beautifully written, sad and does raise a number of issues. The man had problems and there are reasons for his problems. But he was abusive to his wife. He had choices: to take or not take the drugs that could have helped him, to have found a therapist rather than use his wife as one and so on. He may not have been able to help his disease, but there were choices within that framework that he chose, and the fault of those choices lies with him. But nothing is as simple as that.