My Review:

In Love by Amy Bloom hits all the right notes when it comes to revealing and evoking authentic and true emotions. The author beautifully articulates her story of love, passionate and imperfect, and her personal emotional challenges and struggles. She shares what she has experienced and learned during her quest for answers while on life’s journey before and during her husband’s early onset Alzheimer’s symptoms, diagnosis, progression and his life changing decision.

Odd behaviors, strange occurrences and inconsistent decision making over several years finally lead to a doctor’s visit that uncovered the truth. The shocking, but not so shocking diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s was confirmed when Brian went for bloodwork and an MRI… and everything changed for Amy and Brian from that day forward. Brian was adamant about his choice to not live with a debilitating and progressive disease and asked Amy to research his options.

Battling her emotions but knowing she was going to abide by his wishes, Amy Bloom gives us an account of the options she pursued on behalf of her husband, the mental exams Brian was taxed with in order to reach a diagnosis, her emotional rollercoaster and his steadfastness when it came to how his life would conclude, even during the times where he was physically lost, emotionally detached and irrationally short tempered. His unsettling symptoms were exhibited yet his love and appreciation for Amy and his decision to end his life by his own free will never wavered.

I love Amy’s writing and I cried for all that was lost. Brian made an almost impossible and difficult decision and Amy honored it by loving and supporting him… I see that as a beautiful gift they gave each other. I highly recommend this memoir.

Thank you to booktrib.com for publishing my review!

About the Author:

Author of three New York Times best-sellers and three collections of short stories, a children’s book and a ground-breaking collection of essays. Bloom has been a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, O Magazine and Vogue, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages.

She has written many pilot scripts, for cable and network, and she created, wrote and ran the excellent, short-lived series State of Mind, starring Lili Taylor. She is now Wesleyan University’s Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing.