2 out of 4 stars
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Bobby Pierce Forest Gilbert was a 17-year-old boy who committed suicide on 20th April 2015. After being found in his ex-girlfriends yard, he was rushed to the hospital. He was then declared brain-dead and because he was an organ donor, the doctors discussed options with his parents. On the 22nd, he was taken into surgery where his organs could be harvested. Unbelievably, Pierce was able to save 5 lives. He left behind a host of family and friends, as well as a letter explaining why he did it. Our Year of First Without You: A journey through suicide and organ donation takes us through the events leading up to and after his death.
This was a difficult book for me to review. I was really looking forward to hearing the author's journey through this traumatic event. I was interested to see how she coped with life after a child’s death. But I feel like I didn’t get a very personal account. The story read more like a written statement than an insightful and reflective interpretation of what happened. Bobbi Gilbert takes you through the series of events paragraph by paragraph, day by day, citing exactly what transpired. This way of writing removed me from the story and I never felt connected to the family the way I would have hoped.
The first part of the book had me feeling very uncomfortable. Mrs. Gilbert has a clear dislike of Sarah, Pierce’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. I would go as far as to say that she blames his suicide mostly on Sarah. There are places that she said that it was the depression that killed him, but her treatment of Sarah before and after his death is utterly hostile. The suicide is harrowing to say the least, and everyone who knew him felt the disturbance of his death. For me, there should be catharsis in forgiveness, and there was none here. Most of the book was a pure diatribe against Sarah. I feel like these journalistic rants against her were unnecessary.
I would have loved a deeper look into what Mrs. Gilbert was going through personally. She seemed unbelievably strong through the whole ordeal. There are pages and pages of anecdotes about family, friends and distant acquaintances who wished the family well through this hard time. I could have done with less of that. It was really respectful of Mrs. Gilbert to mention absolutely everyone who had a part to play, but there were far too many people to keep up with. Maybe mentioning how they helped her get through it would have been a nice touch, not just that they stopped by or called. I think after the mention of her “former hair chick” stopping by, I lost interest a little bit. And I really didn’t want to!
The insight into organ donation was truly remarkable. I loved that Pierce’s family got to meet a few of his recipients. I also thoroughly enjoyed the stories of their meetings. There were a few really interesting thoughts on organ donation, as well as some astounding statistics which I found surprising. I am an organ donor, but I think if I hadn’t been, I would have signed up immediately after reading this book. If this is the way I feel, I have no doubt this book will reach others - and that is a tremendous accomplishment.
Throughout the book, Mrs. Gilbert has added a bunch of photos, inspirational images and letters - including the original suicide note. I thought this was a very special touch. The photos are what ultimately brought me closer to the situation and made it all seem more real. My only gripe with the letters is that I couldn’t read them on my Kindle. They were too small. This was a total disappointment to me. I wanted to see what the donor recipients said, I wanted to read Morgan’s college essay, and I wanted to see more clearly what was said in the suicide note. I would sincerely recommend making the images larger for the Kindle version.
This book has not been professionally edited. There were countless grammatical errors. These included tense changes, formatting errors and spelling mistakes. There were errors that could easily have been picked up by an editor, including, “That afternoon, they took Morgan and her friend to lunch that afternoon.” A good proofread will vastly improve the readability of this book.
I hope Mrs. Gilbert found some release in writing this book. I have come to a rating of 2 out of 4 stars. The negativity stemming from the author is overwhelming at times. This, for a book about such a tragic event, should have been prevented. When recommending this book, I want to be able to say that it is a journey through how this family overcame and conquered their heartbreak. Unfortunately, I didn't get that feeling. I would, however, happily recommend it to anyone looking to become an organ donor. The one perfect thing that came from Pierce’s death is the gift he gave in saving the lives of those five people. And for that, he is a hero.
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"Our Year of First Without You" 'A journey through suicide and organ donation'
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