Book of the Month: April

 

The Dead Wife's Handbook

by

Hannah Beckerman

 

 

 
'Today is my death anniversary. A year ago today I was still alive.'

Rachel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life - until the night Rachel's heart stopped beating.

Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can't forget her, Rachel can't quite let go of them either. Caught in a place between worlds, Rachel watches helplessly as she begins to fade from their lives. And when Max is persuaded by family and friends to start dating again, Rachel starts to understand that dying was just the beginning of her problems.

As Rachel grieves for the life she's lost and the life she'll never lead, she learns that sometimes the thing that breaks your heart might be the very thing you hope for.

 

 

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I'd heard a lot of great things about The Dead Wife's Handbook, so I was looking forward to getting stuck in myself. I felt an instant connection with Rachel and could feel her heartbreak and frustration as she witnesses the lives of her husband Max and their daughter Ellie continuing without her, first dealing with their loss and then slowly beginning to move on. I was drawn into the lives of Max and Ellie as they coped without Rachel, seeing snippets of their day to day lives from Rachel's limited perspective, and by the end I didn't want to let any of them go. I thought The Dead Wife's Handbook was a poignant but wonderful debut.

 

You can see my full review of The Dead Wife's Handbook here

 

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