Tags
128 Days and Counting, book, books, cancer, Caregiver, drama, Goodreads, Honore Nolting, Memoir, review
128 Days and Counting: A 28-Year Old Caregiver’s Memoir by Honore Nolting is the story of a young couple facing cancer.
I can understand how hard it is to be a caregiver and that writing about situations like this helps. But I need to add some suggestions to help improve this book if the author ever chooses to do an updated version of this book.
First off a photo of the young couple anywhere in this book would have helped so I as the reader could connect with them. It’s a minor issue and I’m sure the website would have photos but if I’m reading a book right at the very moment I don’t want to put down my book and check out websites.
Now onto the book. Whoever chose the type should be fired. Could you use a smaller type? It hurts your eyes trying to read. This is supposed to be a book, not an eye test.
There was lots of information missing from this book such as looking back are they sure that Tom didn’t have any other symptoms? How long do they think he had cancer? What was its shape? Honore talks about it being ugly but give the reader something to visualize. How rare is this cancer? is it genetic? What are the odds it could come back? What future tests does Tom need to have? Could this have been caught sooner and so on? Medical questions I wondered about but never got the answers too.
Instead, I get a lot of ‘I love you’ & ‘I love you too’ which again is fine if you include relevant medical answers in the book. But again this book is more about Honore’s experience and not Tom’s.
I did roll my eyes at all the stuff about the fertility treatment and wonder why no one said ‘hey let’s get a sample and put it on ice before chemo’. Less than 8 weeks after his surgery they are shocked to learn they might have to wait two years before trying for a family (no one told them beforehand?) Or they are upset when they talk about the use of a donor? This just felt very rushed and it’s understandable to want to move on but reading this gives it almost an immature feel about it. I understand making plans but this is life. Nothing happens as it should.
And then you bring up politics in a book about cancer. Why is this in the book? This should never have been brought up that Donald Trump won and how the affordable care act might be changed. Not once in this book is there talk about insurance (a complicated issue in and of itself) but I want to read a book and not get hit over the head with politics. What could and could not change via insurance adds nothing to this book. Its pure speculation. Maybe the health plans would be even better. And at the end of the day what are you going to do about it? So yes this really turned me off the book in the end.
Anyway I do hope it works out for Honore and Tom in the end.
I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.