4 out of 4 stars
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Rethinking Possible by Rebecca Faye Smith Gali is a heartbreaking and thought-provoking autobiography that highlights the real-life problems of tragedy, loss, grief, and pain, especially from a mother’s perspective. A well-written, profound book, it appeals both to those who have gone through such circumstances and those who wish to understand a little bit of what it feels like.
Anything is possible, right? At least, it would be in a perfect world. Rebecca Faye Smith Galli had an idyllic childhood, growing up with the perfect family, the perfect life, in her eyes. But in a flawed world, life rarely stays perfect for long. One day, while she was at college, Galli received a phone call from her father, telling her that her brother Forest had been severely injured in a skiing accident. Forest died a while later, affecting Galli immensely.
Later in her life, she started to experience tragedy after tragedy, from miscarriage, children with special needs, divorce, death, and her own health issues that caused her to be paralyzed from the waist down. Struggling through the never-ending tide of devastation in her life, she started to wonder if she would ever get through it. She began to write about her life, in the form of emails she sent out to a few friends. Those few friends turned into an entire list of readers who subscribed to her list, reading her unique perspective on her life and supporting her with their presence. She finally started to accept her life as it was, not as she wished it could be, and began noticing the things that were still possible for her. She started “rethinking possible” and realized that she could be content with the life that she still had. “Life isn’t about what you’ve lost,” she wrote. “but about what you’ve learned – and what you do with what you have left.”
There was almost nothing I disliked about this book. It was very well written and impeccably edited – I only found one grammar mistake, a missing comma that could easily have been overlooked. The way the story was arranged was slightly confusing at the beginning because she would switch between describing events in her story and explaining those events by flashing back to her childhood. It worked very well in terms of helping the reader understand the story, but I did notice the switching back and forth. But compared to a lot of books I’ve read, that’s nothing, not even an issue at all.
I loved the author’s writing style, which flowed well and was easy to read while still describing exactly what she was thinking and feeling at the time. The story for the most part moves in chronological order, with occasional flashbacks to a previous experience to help the reader understand the event in question, like I mentioned earlier. Galli was very detailed and really made me feel in a way the anguish and uncertainty that she was feeling at the time – the book is very emotionally oriented, and does its job well. I was pleased with this book and feel that it could not have been done any better.
I rate Rethinking Possible 4 out of 4 stars – I enjoyed it very much and would recommend to everyone. It was an incredible, heartfelt, and hopeful book that encouraged me and made me want to share the story with everyone around me. And the best thing about this book is that you can apply the principles that Galli discovered to your own life – no matter what has happened to you, you can learn to be content with what you can still do – rethink possible and make the most out of what you have.
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Rethinking Possible
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