The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care

A gut wrenching, thought provoking book that studies pain, mortality, medical treatments and illness in general centering on the author's own life and her battle against breast cancer.. Although she obviously survives this is not a feel good book. Being a poet and a teacher she does a tremendous

Show More

amount of historical research on breast cancer and death going all the way back to the Greeks. She emphasized John Donne's poetry in particular. She is laser focused in her indictment of our current health care system and its inadequacy for patients like she was. A very important book.

Show Less

My feelings are mixed. I have several pros and cons. First of all, I thought the cover was totally appropriate to represent cancer and its treatment, even though I personally hate snakes to the point that I don't like seeing pics of them. I do feel like Ann covered nearly everything she could about

Show More

the behind-the-scenes details of cancer, from financial, treatment options, ways others treat you and your decisions, family, friends, making a difference, trying to survive. It was very thorough. She also touched on the Susan B Komen foundation keeping most of the money raised, making the leaders of it fat cats, while very little goes toward the cancer patients. I have heard this for a long time, and I still don't understand how an agency can be allowed to rip off people like that. I doubt this is an opinion, either. Maybe this book will bring change, which is another thing I enjoyed about the author. She is definitely an advocate for change, even if it is as small as standing up for yourself, doing the research to know what is going on, and choosing your treatments. On a large scale, that is writing this memoir and sharing with the world all the dirty details of cancer and what changes still need to come. The story was well-written as far as coverage. I enjoyed the memoir as a chance to meet someone new and hear a new story.

What I HATED! The story itself. In fact, everyone should hate it with the topic of CANCER, so that was not a reason why I did not give it five stars. I also despised a lot of the history presented, as most of it did not really contribute to the story, was rambling, and out of chronological order, which personally drove me nuts. When you mention something toward the end of the book that happened in the 1800's, it might be time to revamp the organization of the book. I also hated the graphic parts of treatment, and those who have a weak stomach, a weak heart, or just can't handle graphic situations might either want to read this a little at a time, or skip certain parts. I literally had to put the book down at one point, because I had just eaten. I have read a lot of gross stuff, but graphic mutilation and/or death are two things my brain does not process well. Again, different strokes for different folks, so I did not take a star away for that, but I hated it! I thought that the story rambled at times, as if she wrote it while actually on treatment and every random thought that ever floated into her brain was put onto paper. A little of that is a good thing to see if that is what cancer does to you, but I am not convinced that was what happened. All I do know that when you use a lot of big words and disjointed ideas over and over, is that filler? If this is a true book to enlighten, my personal opinion is that it should have been written so the average person could easily understand. That would be about a 6th grade level, as we are no longer a huge nation of readers. The outline of the book also drove me nuts. The prologue did not lead well into the book, in my opinion. I saw a lot of crazy numbering for what appeared to be chapters? This may change, as the final book does not hit the stands until October. I would rather see no number versus a bunch of 1s and 2s that didn't mean too much to me. Sounded more like the outline of a research paper. I DO understand the book did give a lot of research details, but still, a book should read and feel like a book. I can see a movie resulting from this book, as there is a good storyline in the middle of all of the chaos.

Show Less