1 out of 4 stars
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The Journey to The End: His Journey Home by Patricia Edwards is a memoir of her late husband, Deacon Calvin Edwards. Writing this book was most likely a great cathartic release for the author from the grief of losing her beloved. Edwards focuses on the last four years of Calvin’s life (2012-2016). She summarizes this period in the first paragraph of the first chapter with this sentence; “His health would take a tumble, improve and ultimately end.”
I chose to review this book because both the book cover and title appealed to me. I was expecting an emotional rollercoaster ride based on the subject matter at hand. There were many saddening and infuriating moments recounted that I am sure many of us can relate to. For example, there was more than one time when Calvin was in the ER for hours in a dire situation and persons with less urgent cases were assisted before him. There were also many dialogues throughout the story that portrayed the feeling of helplessness that the other family members experienced. These were instrumental in helping me sympathize with them. Moreover, it was pleasing to see that during these trying times that the Deacon and his wife held their faith in Christ Jesus.
Unfortunately, I was not able to enjoy The Journey to The End as much as I hoped. The author begins the book by giving us a little background information about her husband. Although the tone of writing is conversational, she introduces Calvin as if he was a fictional character. It seems as if she is trying to detach herself from the story. This may not necessarily be a demerit to some readers, but it confused me to the point that I had to read those paragraphs a few times. The author becomes a character in the story when she receives a phone call from her ailing husband. This was a necessary conversation but sadly afterward there were many redundant dialogues. On the other hand, there were many events that I think could have been expounded on but were simply glossed over.
I cannot deny that Edwards was able to paint pictures with her words but overall, she did a lot more telling than showing. There were many times that I had a strong urge to skim-read paragraphs because reading this book felt tedious at times. Also, it is evident from the numerous grammatical errors that I spotted that this book was not professionally edited. There were many instances where words were obviously missing and not a
few cases of poor punctuation. Edwards also wrote in the past tense using the word ‘would’ unnecessarily an annoying amount of times. For example, she wrote something like, "I would go to the hospital that afternoon." instead of "I went to the hospital that afternoon." The grammatical and editorial errors in The Journey to The End greatly hindered me from enjoying this reading experience.
In conclusion, after much thought, I rate The Journey to The End 1 out of 4 stars. I cannot recommend this memoir to anyone until it is professionally edited. It is saddening to give this book such a poor rating since it is a memoir. Regrettably, the author neglected to enhance the quality of her work by not having it professionally edited. If this is revised, I would recommend it to persons who have lost a loved one.
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The Journey to the End.
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