The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe 🔖🔖🔖

My first impression was that I didn't feel like Schwalbe was a great writer. I didn't like the sentence flow or the attempts at description. Throughout the book, I wondered why it mattered where the authors of the books he discussed lived, went to school, or how old they were when they wrote the book, especially when the descriptions of the books themselves were so slim. He talked about what he and his mother thought about the books and how they applied them to the current situation, but not a lot of effort was put into discussing the actual book plot or intent. I realize the purpose of The End of Your Life Book Club was their experience with reading, but the little inserts about the authors was more annoying than helpful. He also kept telling us things he'd already pointed out previously. The blog he and his mother were writing was written by her as if from his point of view, which he seemed to have to point out to us each and every time. We're smart enough to remember, really. We also remember who David Rohde was without having to describe every detail every time he mentioned him.

I could not relate to the characters. He presented his mother as a perfect, controlled, giving woman, and maybe she was, but it is harder to believe a perfect character over someone with a flaw or two. Sure, he was eulogizing his mother and I can only hope my children think so highly of me. Yet it took away from my ability to connect with her. I also found it hard to connect with him as he appeared to like to point out his privilege, which most of us cannot relate to. Summers in London, boarding school, being able to quit a job and not worry about rent, vacationing at a condo in Florida, huge dinners that obviously cost more than I make in a month ... unrelatable. And again, why was it necessary to keep pointing that out?

So why did I keep reading and actually enjoy it? I did enjoy hearing about the books they read and how they processed and discussed them. I did enjoy reading about the progression of his mother's disease and how he and she worked through that. I really enjoyed the idea that he was able to spend so much time with his mother before she passed away, building on a relationship and making it deeper and more meaningful through books. My mom wasn't a reader, but it would have been a nice thing to be able to have conversations with her before she passed away. I tapped into that and it made the book enjoyable enough to finish and give three stars.