Being Unique Being Me Eve: PTSD

Showing posts with label PTSD. Show all posts

Saturday, 25 May 2019

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor isn't normal, first and for most this is evident but then who is, she's just dealing with a lot.

Scarred from childhood in a fire she endures the mundane everyday life she's used to from going to her office job, going home, doing crosswords and keeping to herself drowning her sorrows in vodka too.

After all her mother drummed it into her from birth that she's not worth anything and no one will ever care for her...even her past boyfriend Declan abused her and she thought it was normal sadly.

So one day when she meets new IT worked Raymond and by chance they help an old man in the street when he takes bad they start to meet up with him and then at lunch too. Eleanor develops a sort of social life she never believed she would deserve thanks to her past.

Through the book we witness her highs and lows including when things with her mother come to a head spiralling her depression and her addiction to vodka and sending her to counselling and help her come to terms to with an unobtainable crush she had on a musician as well as discover her past trauma to help her heal from and accept actions aren't her fault at all despite the guilt she's let consume her the rest of her life.

This book tackles a lot of complex issues from trauma, addiction, loneliness and the end plot twist to do with her mum makes you realise just how bad things were for Eleanor. I felt empathetic towards the main character but was happy with the portrayal of how such horrific acts can cause PTSD/trauma effects.

Saturday, 5 August 2017

I Found You by Lisa Jewell

Alice is in her forties, living up north after moving from her home in Brixton with her children, leaving her parents suffering Alzheimer's in full time care. She is able to run her unique map crafting business in peace by day to keep her family afloat.
Derry is her best friend she met through taking her children to school day in day out and worries for Alice when she takes in the possibly forty year old strange man she has watched sitting on the beach getting soaked by the pouring rain.

Carl is missing and Lily his new Ukranian wife is clueless how to find him when he doesn't exist on police database as reporting him missing.

Carl has no memory of who he is but goes with Alice and so becomes 'Frank', the mystery man.

Rabbit cottage has been Kirsty, Gray, Pam and Tony their mum and dad's holiday home full of happy memories year after year.
That is until stranger Mark starts hanging around Kirsty and Gray becomes suspicious of him.

Throughout the book, the story is unravelled around twenty years apart in actions to consequences to date.

Highly intoxicating reading, mysteries and questioning ahead when you pick this book up, you have to!

Thursday, 8 June 2017

Baby Lost by Hannah Robert

Only two days after Christmas back in 2009, Hannah's life changed drastically after a car crashed into her car while she was eight months pregnant with her little baby 'Halloumi'.

Also in the car was her partner, Roma and their daughters, Jackie and Jazzie who all managed to escape the wreck along with Hannah but unfortunately, baby Zainab had just one tender day with her family due to the horrific accident. No amount of bruises or broken bones were as significant a side effect of the crash as an innocent newborn life being so cruelly taken. I feel anger towards the reckless driver for taking this poor family's precious baby away, reckless drivers need stopping and need punishment.

Hannah's writing during the time of being in hospital talks of her inability to face traveling in a car again so soon as the trauma caught up to her and all she was facing ahead of her felt too much, working with a physiotherapist to walk again properly as well as grief all taking a toll.

I was glad to know that the reckless student driver was caught but saddened to know that Hannah and Rims split. However, their grief was aided by Ali's arrival, a newborn baby boy joined their family and sent a new glimmer of life and hope to them.

I was so glad to read that Hannah's family escaped but the loss of a new baby is always a tender thing. In our family, my aunt suffered a lot to get pregnant and I have a friend trying multiple rounds of IVF to try and have a baby, it's an emotional toll to endure at any stage of pregnancy from conceiving to birth. Hannah's account is detailed and strong, the family is a powerful team and baby Z would be proud to have such a loving family.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

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Goodreads Quotes

Eve beinguniquebeingme’s quotes

"You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."— Rosemarie Urquico

Goodreads Quotes

Eve's books

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