I am I am I am - Maggie O'Farrell

Description

I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, gorgeously written, it is a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life's fragility, determined to make every heartbeat count.

A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, this is the extraordinary memoir from Costa Novel-Award winner and Sunday Times bestselling author Maggie O'Farrell. It is a book to make you question yourself. What would you do if your life was in danger, and what would you stand to lose?

Review

I decided to get the audio version of this book, as I have so many books to read already. I'm so glad I did, as the lady reading the book has the most lovely annunciation and the way she reads just brought it to life, more than if I had read it from the pages myself. I've never read any of O'Farrell's fiction, and only wanted to read this as someone had described part of it to me, and I just knew I wanted to read it. I now want to read her fiction too. The seventeen chapters are all about brushes with death that the author has experienced. They are set within other anecdotes and that brings them to life as well a softening some of them. Others are very raw - especially the one about her daughter at the end. O'Farrell could have moaned about so many of the things that happened in her life, especially the many times it seems the health professionals let her down. Instead she poured it onto the page and it doesn't come across as a moan but as a rich open wound for others to experience and learn from. This was a title from my personal shelf.