I love to read, but I tend to stick with a few genres that I really enjoy - thrillers, mysteries, the occasional horror, romances if I want a light read, and, of course, Dr. Seuss. But this year, I decided to branch out; to try different types of books, stories, and memoirs.
When I was given the chance to read The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith, I jumped at the chance. This fit right into my New Year’s Resolution of branching out in the world of writing.
The Rules of Inheritance is Claire’s chronicle of dealing with the grief of losing both of her parents to cancer before she turned 30. There are moments in here of heart-wrenching reality, where the author is literally drowning in her grief, and here is where I had some trouble with the book.
It’s hard to criticize a book like this. This isn’t a fictional account of a character’s loss, but rather a real person’s real story. So how do you take issue with what they write?
For me, my issues were actually resolved within the book. Claire’s parents are actually both diagnosed with cancer when she is 14. I can’t imagine what it must have been like at that age, watching your parents fight a disease that is too often insurmountable. What I hated seeing was that Claire defined herself by the loss of her mother when she was 18. She didn’t seem to remember the good times. She didn’t revel in the fact that she had 18 good years with a mother that adored her. Instead, she became the girl whose mother died when she was 18. It was almost as if all that came before was lost. Granted this is a memoir on dealing with grief, but it seemed that no matter what stage Claire was at she still thought of herself as “the girl whose mother died.”
No disrespect intended, but I enjoyed Claire’s story much more when she spoke about her father. Her father made different choices than her mother. Her mother chose risky surgeries as a way to try to fight her disease, but her father decided he would die on his terms, and spend some time at the end with his daughter. And I think those choices allowed Claire to finally see her father for what he was - a war hero, a pilot, a provider, a husband, and a father. The best part of this book for me was Claire’s trip to the Czech Republic with her father. Her father’s bomber was shot down over a tiny town in Prague during WWII. Here she learned that her father was not just “dad,” but a true hero. He fought bravely for what he believed in, and I think Claire carried that admiration over to her father’s fight with cancer. She trusted him to know when enough was enough, and she did all she could for him in the end.
I was happy to see Claire come to terms with the loss of her parents; pleased to see her move forward from “the girl who’s mother died” to a place of happiness and acceptance.
Disclosure: This is a paid review of the book The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith as part of the BlogHer Book Club. All opinions I express here are my own.
