In Love - Amy Bloom

In Love

By Amy Bloom

  • Release Date: 2022-03-08
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 215 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful memoir of a love that leads two people to find a courageous way to part—and a woman’s struggle to go forward in the face of loss—that “enriches the reader’s life with urgency and gratitude” (The Washington Post)

“A pleasure to read . . . Rarely has a memoir about death been so full of life. . . . Bloom has a talent for mixing the prosaic and profound, the slapstick and the serious.”—USA Today


ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Real Simple, Prospect (UK), She Reads, Kirkus Reviews


Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease.

Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace.

In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing—its ending. Written in Bloom’s captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize

Reviews

  • Death With Dignity, Courage and Love

    5
    By Mellew1234567
    I am intrigued and awed by the people who can choose death when they love life so much. I was with my mother in law when she asked the pastor at her Palliative Care appointment, if going off dialysis was considered suicide. She was ready to go and was done watching/feeling her brain deteriorate after two years of dialysis. It was the greatest kindness and act of motherly love to her remaining, loving son to not leave it to him to have to decide once she was no longer able to. She died on her own terms and in peace with her adult grandchildren able to experience lovingly saying goodbye - and she to them. This love story was beautiful, heart-rending and meaningful to me. Amy Bloom lent her graceful narrative style to the exquisitely personal and meaningful happenings of her own experience- a rare experience that few have endured and even fewer have the means to share. Oh boy she endured the ultimate conundrum of being with her beloved husband and best friend as he made the decisions and conscious efforts to die while still himself.
  • Beautiful & Informative

    5
    By jbk2361571
    What a gift this book is to the author’s husband and to readers. It’s obviously hard to fathom how difficult it must be to have to support someone you love who finds ending their life medically necessary but Amy captures it with grace, clarity and sometimes welcome doses of humor.
  • Powerful but not morbid

    5
    By wideread
    A very courageous book to have written at a most difficult time
  • So good…so sad…so real

    5
    By Mrs cpee
    A moving tribute to a great love. Thought provoking….could I face that situation with the same grace and dignity?
  • I cried

    5
    By schoenbergersm
    Almost all the way through this.