Review: This Shining Life by Harriet Kilne

A wonderful happy Saturday book lovers. Boy do I love the weekends. Today I am sharing my review of This Shining Life by Harriet Kilne. But before I do, please can we take a moment to admire this absolutely beautiful cover. It truly is stunning.

review

This Shining Life was a bittersweet story about the premature death of kind, loveable Rich and the grief he leaves in his wake. His wife Ruth finds this too much to handle and their 11- year old autistic son Ollie is finding each day more difficult to understand. The story is told from multiple perspectives and dual timelines, from Rich's tumour diagnosis to the aftermath of his death.
Having lost my Auntie very prematurely a few years ago, This Shining Life really struck a chord with me. Grief rears it ugly head in many different ways and in the build up, you still cling on to some unfathomable hope that it isn't really happening. 
It was hard to read at times especially with the main characters lack of understanding of Ollie. It felt like they just had no patience for him, but what this shines a light on is that we are all only human and we all have our flaws and misunderstandings.
There were some lighter moments in this and I'm glad the author decided to write on both sides of Rich's life and death and the things he did and the happy memories he had.
I enjoyed the fact that this was written from multiples points of view as I feel you get so much out of a story and the author did this very well. 
A tender and beautiful story about love, loss and grief.

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