Review Round-Up: Making Toast

We love getting your feedback on our books, almost as much as we enjoy reading them! With that in mind, here are three new reviews of Roger Rosenblatt's Making Toast from our trusty readers.  And while you're here, don't miss Virginia's review. 

Our first comes from 20something Lauren Gibaldi, who blogs on halfdesertedstreets.com.  Lauren calls the book "an absolute beautiful read, a truly wonderful tribute." Her full review can be found here. 

Next up is Diane LaRue. of LaRue Marketing & Public Relations.  She writes: "Their story will touch (and sometimes break) your heart."  Her review is here. 

Nancy Renfro, director of the Watauga Regional Library, writes:

There never can be too many books on the subject of the death of a loved one.  We all mourn in different ways, and each memoir about death has its own perspective that lends credence to our own unique ways of suffering.  When faced with death, we need reassurance that others have made it through the first numbing days of sorrow, survived, and even created beauty out of their suffering.  Making Toast is a sad, but welcome addition to the growing list of titles of regular humans going about their lives with the people they love and then, unexpectedly, tragically, having the specter of death thrust upon them.  Some of the most readable, poignant and noteworthy of these memoirs are from already published authors.  They already are adept at writing, and thus can explain the emotional tangle they experience in a coherent way.  There have been several over the years  from well-known women authors: Isabel Allende ‘s moving tribute to her daughter “Paula”, Joan Didion’s heart wrenching “The Year of Magical Thinking”, where she deals not only with the death of her beloved husband John Gregory Dunne, but the continued care for her daughter in critical condition in the hospital.  But this memoir is different.  From the perspective of a father, it is less emotional and inward looking, and more a chronicle of how he, his wife, and extended family get through the day to day living that must go on after the death of a vital, healthy wife, mother, and career woman.  How does a parent bury a child in the prime of her life, and then continue to live and find meaning in the life that is left?  Rosenblatt answers that question through his own life and the lives of the family members left behind.  This book is highly recommended.

Jennifer Monahan Winberry, Principal Librarian at Hunterdon County Library, says:

When Roger Rosenblatt's 38-year-old daughter Amy dies unexpectedly from a very rare heart abnormality, he and his wife Ginny leave there home in Long Island and move into the guest room in Amy's Bethesda home to be with their son-in-law and three young grandchildren.  Making Toast is at once the story of a grieving father, a loving tribute to a young woman lost too soon and of a family learning to cope with their loss and reimagine themselves into their new reality.
 
Snippets from Amy's life growing up and as a young mother and pediatrician are interspersed with Rosenblatt's reflections of his present life, creating a loving and lasting tribute that will have readers crying and laughing and most importantly, learning how to live purposefully and simply.

Next is Lisa Kent, Library Secretary at Lakes Community High School:

You will read every page of this book with a lump in your throat. This truly is a story of terrible beauty. Terrible because the absolute worst thing happens to the Rosenblatt/Solomon family when their daughter/wife/mother dies at the unbelievably young age of 38. As her husband Harrison says "It's impossible." Beautiful because this is the story of a family that does not break. Instead they live on, with each other and for each other.

When Amy dies suddenly and unexpectedly of an undiagnosed heart anomaly, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife Ginny suspend their own life - "forever" as he tells his oldest grandchild Jessie - and move in with their son-in-law and his three young children. This book chronicles the first year of their life together as they become a new kind of family.

Nothing happens and yet, everything happens. There's growing and grieving and living in every page of this quietly moving story. This is not a sappy book - in fact, many of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny - but yet it is deeply touching. When Harris asks five year old Sammy what he thought Mommy would wish for on her birthday and he replies "To be alive", the heartbreak is almost too much to bear. But the stories of Boppo the Great (the name Rosenblatt's grandkids bestow on him when they can't say "El Guapo" like he hopes they will) will make you smile and realize that every one is going to be fine - they're changed forever, but together they will make a life.

And last, but not least, Melissa Stream from Madison, WI:

After reading the synopsis of this book, I HAD to read it. I knew I would relate to the story and read it in one night, cover to cover. My father died suddenly when I was 17 years old and seven years later my mom died of breast cancer after a 2 ½  year battle. I am an only child.  Your world changes whether you want it to or not when you lose a loved one. I’ve always felt that the human brain was never meant to understand or process death. How could they be there, living and breathing one minute, and then be gone in the next, never to be seen, heard or felt ever again forever and ever? (And believe me, in my grief process in the last 15 years, I’ve done a lot of reading on death, and it never gets easier to understand why my father isn’t here with me anymore!)

In this book, a family has lost one of its own, a daughter, a wife and a mother all in one. She leaves behind her parents, two siblings, a husband, three small children and countless friends, co-workers and colleagues. It’s heartbreaking how suddenly her vibrant life was cut short. Her youngest child is barely a year old! In the year following her death, her parents are willing and able to move in with their son-in-law and help care for the children. Their story lies in the day to day life after this loss – how they try to move on with their lives.

I had so many thoughts in my head while reading this book. First of all, I thought, wow, these kids are so immensely fortunate to have their grandparents in the physical & financial capacities to just pick up their lives and move in with them to help care for them. It’s a most fortunate and unique situation. As the book went on I thought, THANK HEAVENS the grandparents were able AND willing to pick up their lives and move in to help care for them. These children are so young – losing their mother at their age was nothing like how I lost my mom when I was 24 or when I lost my father when I was 17. I cannot compare my situation at all to these children except that the loss of a parent is so difficult no matter what age you are at their passing.

Second I found myself nodding several times at Roger’s observations, especially the title, Making Toast. When your world is turned upside down like a snow globe and shaken out of recognition, sometimes the littlest and most familiar things will ground you and provide immense comfort. Toast is so simple, yet it brought these kids so much comfort. My security blanket has been my home (which I inherited from my parents) – in times of crises, I just want to go home! I’ve often felt inadequate in what to tell people when faced with their loss, even after my own experiences. I always feel that saying, “I’m sorry for your loss” is so redundant, empty and just plain obvious! After reading this book, I want to tell them to find that thing which is most familiar to them, and hold it close as long as they need to while they process their grief.

Lastly, I admire this family so much. They have truly handled Amy’s passing with such grace, dignity and a unique level of calm. This family is so grounded and in touch with each other! They freely tell each other how they feel, they talk about Amy – it all struck me as incredibly happy, even shortly after her passing. The husband, Harris, sticks out greatly in comparison, as one who cannot and will not discuss his grief, but he must not be dismissed. We do not know how he is processing the loss internally and it is true that everyone processes grief in their own way.

This book hit home with me “something fierce” as I like to say, and I wanted to reach into the book and embrace the entire family and tell them I UNDERSTAND and also I ADMIRE them for their courage and grace in processing Amy’s passing. I imagine that Roger would tell me, as I have told others, “we’re doing the best we can with what life has dealt us.”

Comments

[Renaissance Clothing]

Making Toast, sounds wonderful, but I already have enough sad things in my life, I think I will skip this one.

[Lauren]

Thanks for the link to my review!