Anyone who knows me knows that I am a complete sap. I cry at commercials, greeting cards, notes the Princess writes for me, basically I will tear up at the drop of a hat.
Since I felt so personally connected to Matt, Maddy, and Liz’s story from reading his blog, I was very hesitant to read his book because I knew that I would spend the majority of the time I was reading in the ugliest cry imaginable. Then my friend Wan volunteered to host book club and through her
I know right? How awesome is that?
So basically, I had to man up and read the book, which btw I had already bought and had sitting in my always bountiful “to be read” pile on my bookshelf. I decided to read it in stages so I could limit the amount of ugly cry, but really, I was a mess by the second page of the foreword and just decided to push through and read the whole thing in one sitting only stopping to blow my nose and check Twitter.
So anyway, the book is awesome. When someone opens themselves up to the degree that Matt has, you really can’t help but love it. It’s real, and raw, and overpowering in its emotion but in a totally good way. I felt very fortunate to be allowed this kind of access into such a tragic and personal event. I was moved by Matt’s candor and by the fact that he was not afraid to write completely as himself, (f-bombs and all) and just talk about the real truth of what it’s like to lose your best friend and life partner, how angry and scared he was, and how difficult it is to raise a kid on your own when you were completely unprepared to do so.
Matt’s presence at our book club was quite frankly, amazeballs. He is truly one of the nicest, most down to earth people I have ever met, and I don’t just mean out of authors, I mean literally in the thousands of people I’ve had the fortune (or misfortune) of meeting, he’s probably in the top 20, maybe even 10 if I sat and thought about it. Since I was all author-struck and also in a food coma from all of the awesome grub we had at book club (oh yes, we are hardcore about our menu and it is always the bomb dot com) I neglected to take any pictures, plus part of me felt like a huge a-hole taking pics of the poor man and his child for my own posterity (you know said pictures would totally end up on Facebook) when he was so sweet to come and talk about his book with us. Luckily Wan…who btw, is a fabulous hostess and photographer took a bunch of pictures of the entire day and posted them on her blog, where you can see Matt, my fabulous book club ladies, and me in my signature color (naturally) grinning like an idiot.
I definitely recommend reading this book, just be sure to bring along with a box of tissues and an open heart because once you’ve finished it may be filled with hope and gratitude as mine most surely was.
