1 out of 4 stars
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When Angels Fly by S. Jackson and A. Raymond is journaled account of two major elements of what I assume to be author Sarah Jackson’s life. The first life-long event is the constant abuse and harassment placed upon Sarah by her mother, husband, and siblings as part of a very dysfunctional family. The second major life event depicted through the journaling is the battle with a rare cancer suffered by Sarah’s five year old son, Eli, and the experience that Sarah has going through the ordeal on the sidelines of her son’s suffering. The story is based on a true story and real-life events that were recorded in journals by the authors.
The characterization of Sarah, Eli, Henry the abusive husband, and Ethel the abusive mother was very interesting. Sarah was a character of strength through unimaginable hardship. Eli was a child who was wise and brave well beyond his years. Henry was a heartless, self-centered sociopath who lived only to see Sarah suffer emotionally and physically. Finally, Ethel was an abuser from Sarah’s childhood all the way through her adult life. I found the characters to be very real, diverse, and either admirable or horrific, respectively.
While the story of Eli’s battle with cancer coupled with the abuse suffered by Sarah was heart wrenching, it took everything in me to finish the book. I found it to be riddled with errors of incorrect word usage, absurd shifts in verb tense, and general lack of editing. What was more frustrating was the excess of detail in terms of the medical test result numbers on a daily journal entry basis; the redundancy of the hospital care routine that Sarah provided Eli; the vague, yet frequent, references to Sarah's legal battles; and the length in general. Additionally, the language swayed greatly between complex medical terminology such as emesis (vomiting) to trite words such as tummy. In fact, it wasn’t until chapter 21 and the epilogue that I found the writing to be tolerable to my interest as a reader and better proofread. This is a sad state for a book with so much potential for an amazing story of struggle and triumph.
I rate this book a 1 out of 4 stars because the errors in the writing were distracting and the constant redundancy of the medical details and humdrum of day to day life was practically unbearable to read. These elements greatly detracted from the quality of the characters and the immense potential drama of both the abuse and the battle with cancer. It truly read like an amateurish journal, wrought with free-flowing thoughts of the mundane and without care for proofreading. All of these elements made reading the book drag on and on.
Because of the way the book is written, I suppose the it would appeal most to other families who have been faced with the battle of cancer. These people would better understand the constant lab result data that means nothing to the general population. It might also appeal to a medical professional who would like to understand the day to day battle of the patients and families that they serve. For the average Joe, however, the depth of detail greatly deterred from the immersion into the potentially fantastic plot lines presented. I am truly sorry for the hardships suffered by both Eli and Sarah, but to be honest, had I purchased the book, I would want my money back.
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When Angels Fly
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