Signs of Life: A Memoir

I didn't think I could ever understand the pain of losing a spouse, but I had a good glimpse of this darkness through this book. Natalie Taylor wrote with great honesty and sincerity. At times I felt like slapping her for being selfish and judgemental, but mostly I just wanted to reach in and give her a great big hug for her enormous loss and applaud her courage and strength in living with this loss. The book is very real and I especially l loved reading about her work as an English teacher as she made references to several books and the passages in them which she felt spoke to her about her situation.

Death of a spouse is something I greatly fear and dare not think about, but this book was an eye opener, and helped me not to be afraid to think about it.

First published on Booking in Heels.

This is Natalie Taylor's story. It starts the day her husband dies and ends sixteen months later on their son's first birthday.

Natalie's journey from wife to widow to mother is heartbreaking, blackly funny and will move you to laughter and tears as she makes it across that finish line. And you have no doubt she will make it because Natalie is a warrior and a woman to cheer for.

I can't help but cringe as I type out that summary. It's just awful. Although it's fairly accurate about the plot, the tone of the book is absolutely nothing like that. To start, it's not funny. It's just not, in any way, shape or form. Secondly, the last sentence makes Signs of Life seem like some empowering, feminist self-help novel about coping with grief, and it's not that either. It's just a perfectly average woman writing about the sixteen months after her husband, Josh, dies. I wouldn't describe her as a warrior and yes, she is a woman to cheer for - but so is every widowed, pregnant newly-wed.

The theory goes that every word of this book (minus a few name changes) is completely identical to her diary entries of the time, but obviously I'm not sure how true that is. On one hand, some parts (particularly the ending) seem so unrealistically twee that I can't help but think they're completely fictional. They just tie in too neatly with the whole 'woman finding herself after tragedy' shtick, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, there are parts that I most certainly would have edited out if I were Natalie Taylor and not dedicated to preserving the truth. I understand that her husband and father of her unborn child had just been killed, but the abuse she subjects her in-laws to in this book is horrendous. She just can't seem to understand that Josh's other family members are suffering too - she doesn't appreciate anything they do for her and constantly insults their very personalities. She's just so ungrateful and whiny. I'm not criticising her attitude per se - obviously I've never been widowed at 24 and so can't judge the feelings of those who have. I just wonder at her judgement in choosing to publish something that can only serve to alienate those trying to help her.

Mrs Taylor is also incredibly judgemental about anybody who isn't... well, Mrs Taylor. She joins a support group for single mothers and spends the entire time complaining how their situations can't possibly relate to hers because she's not a) 18 (in fact, she's an oh-so-worldly 24) and b) she didn't choose to raise her baby alone. This actually grated on me quite a lot - who says that the other women there were responsible for their own situations? Natalie does eventually come to terms with this, but for me the damage was already done.

Anyway. It's a very accessible read and I did get In The Book Zone while reading it. It uses a very chatty tone and it's easy to get sucked in. The English teacher aspects of the book are interesting, if not always relevant, as she talks a lot about the books they're studying in class, like The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter. Thing is, unlike most books about books, she actually explains what they're actually about instead of assuming you already know. Must be the English teacher in her coming out. Her opinions of her students are also interesting, but it says a lot that the thing I liked most about Signs of Life are the parts unrelated to the actual topic.

The best way I can explain it is that I liked Signs of Life, but not Natalie Taylor. I finished it in a day and a half, but it's not something I'd ever want to read again. ( )

Suddenly Natalie Taylor’s husband is dead. How can she go on?
Every day, every hour, Natalie tries to come to grips with the sudden, tragic death of her young husband. She is expecting their first child and the couple has only been married a year and a half.
It’s a very sad story.
A few people try to help and do help, but most try to help and don’t help. Some people, she decides, make such a bungle of trying to help that they no longer deserve to be part of her family, so she discards them.
Based on a diary Taylor kept at the time of her husband’s death, this book has an immediacy and depth that most memoirs lack.
Good writing. Good therapy. Worth sharing with others, especially those who have lost a spouse. ( )

http://purplemoonmyst.blogspot.com/2011/04/reviewsigns-of-life.html ( )

I received this book free through Shelf Awareness (big thanks go out to them, the publisher, and the author!!). In this memoir we meet Natalie who, at the young age of 24, has lost her husband of 1 1/2 years, Josh, to a tragic accident. Her life has been completely flipped upside down and she feels like she can't do anything without him. With a baby on the way, she knows she needs to get it together, but after Josh's death she just kind of goes through the motions of day to day life, a shell of her former self. When her son Kai is born, she keeps it together enough to take care of him, but the normal daily tasks she has to complete along with taking care of a newborn is just overwhelming for her. She's still grieving and she doesn't know how she'll ever be able to move forward with her life. With the help of her quirky family (and her own imagination), she begins to heal slowly but surely.

My review: I was really excited to get this book! I love reading memoirs and this one sounded interesting and heartbreaking at the same time. I couldn't really relate to Natalie, because I've never really had to deal with the death of anyone close to me (except for my grandpa, but I was very young at the time and barely remember). It's tough to imagine my husband (or my son) dying, I hate to even ponder what life would be like. I imagine it would be a lot like Natalie's life after Josh's death, just going through every day but not really living. Every holiday makes her break down because he's not there, every picture she sees of him reduces her to tears, pretty much breathing reminds her that he's no longer here with her. And I don't blame her for denial; you always think these bad things happen to other people. They will never happen to you; the bad news is they can and sometimes do.
Honestly, did have some trouble getting through this book. Natalie's commentary was funny at times and it was interesting to see her work toward finding herself again after Josh's death. Unfortunately at times it was repetitive and dull. I hate to even say that because I don't want to come off as insensitive, I definitely feel for Natalie and what she went through. Basically this book was derived from her journal she kept after losing Josh, so it's like a big jumble of everything she was thinking and feeling at the given time. While extremely interesting, it just didn't capture my attention very well.
I definitely did get some important insight though after reading this book. The best one is when Natalie is thinking back to the days leading up to Josh's death, trying to remember what they did in those days. You never know when a life will end, so make sure to live your days to the fullest and keep your loved ones close.

My rating: 3/5 stars ( )