A Story With Highs and Lows
that will keep your emotions rolling
Description
In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.
It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.
When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after three and a half years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.
How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
Details
- Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
- Title: Between Two Kingdoms
- Author: Suleika Jaouad
- Genre: Biographies & Memoir, Death & Dying,
- Audience: Adult
- Length: 368 pages
- Publisher: Random House
- Release Date: February 9, 2021
- Audio Excerpt
- Book Excerpt
- Recommended for fans of: Detailed Memoirs and Recovery Stories
My Thoughts
This is a well-written story that kept my attention from start to finish. The range of emotions that I experienced was extreme. And at times I wanted to jump off the rollercoaster and scream out, No! Open your eyes. Don’t do that! But those were times when I knew for sure that Suleika was sharing her truth in a very honest way.
Suleika’s debut memoir tells of caring parents and a young girl growing up. The young woman even gets accepted into a prestigious college. But it isn’t long before the bottom drops out of this thrill ride. And let me warn you, this emotional rollercoaster is certainly not for the faint of heart.
When her symptoms of itching and tiredness take her from Paris, she is met with a grim diagnosis. At the young age of 22, Suleika learns that she has acute myeloid leukemia.
From this point on Suleika has me feeling like I am peering through a peephole into her personal life. She speaks honestly about relationships, her deepest fears, and the treatment she endures. But even though I feel like a voyeur, I can’t get enough of her story.
Eventually, when I begin to think her health concerns might be taking a backseat, Jaouad surprised me with a new journey. One where I act as a cheerleader, yet at the same time shake my head and wonder what in God’s green earth she is doing! Again, a show of emotions. I am both excited and proud. And shocked and speechless.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, there were several places where I wanting to scream, No! Open your eyes. Don’t do that!? Why? That’s a good question. One you will have to ask yourself as you read this wonderful book.
Concerns
Nothing comes to mind.
My Conclusion
Though I realize this story is through the author’s eyes, it felt completely honest. In fact, there were instances where it might have made her look better to have conveniently distort her memories. But it seemed obvious to me that this memoir recorded both the good and the not-so-good.
I applaud Jaouad for sharing a story that will touch so many. Not only did she share her personal journey but that of those who loved her. I couldn’t imagine the emotions her parents, boyfriend(s), and friends were experiencing. But this writing somehow managed to bring it all together.
My appreciation to #NetGalley and the author for a copy of this story and the ability to post a review of my opinion.
Rating
About the Author
Suleika Jaouad is an Emmy Award–winning writer, speaker, cancer survivor, and activist. She served on Barack Obama’s President’s Cancer Panel, and her advocacy work, reporting, and speaking has been featured at the United Nations, on Capitol Hill, and on the TED Talk main stage. When she’s not on the road with her 1972 Volkswagen camper van and her rescue dog Oscar, she lives in Brooklyn.
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