I did not think this was well written. It was choppy and repetitive and made me feel like I was reading a college essay. It also made me wish that the author had sought counseling after her sisters suicide - if only for the sake of her long suffering husband and, especially, her son who seems to have lived in the troubled shadows of his mothers obsession with her own guilt and denial.

Very well written with references to poets and philosophers who all at one time or another tried to answer the question of what would lead someone to take their own life. Thoughtful and touching book.

REVIEWED BY MEREDITH MARAN "Could the aftermath of a suicide be depicted any more poignantly than this? "Everyone...at the grave site must have wondered what he or she might have said or done that may have affected Kim's act, and our responsibility left us speechless." So writes poet and novelist Bialosky of her sister's decision to end her life at age 21. Bialosky was as much mother as sister to Kim, and her death, even two decades later, remains as devastating as the loss of a child. This searing elegy is the author's release from speechlessness and an encouragement to other suicide survivors to find such release. Studded with Kim's writings and informed by the latest research, this memoir reads like butter and cuts like a knife." People Pick