Slings & Arrows [Kindle Edition]

I was asked to read this book by the author, as I enjoyed her novel 'Gone'. 'Slings and Arrows' is the factual account of what happened to the author's daughter and the true story which inspired the author's fantasy novel 'Gone'. Anyone who has read 'Gone' will be curious to read 'Slings and Arrows' which is a heartrending and honest account of the tragic events leading to the death of her child. It is written from the perspective of a mother who is still to come to terms with the events even after many years have passed, and the idea is that this book will help those who have suffered or are suffering similar losses, or as in the words of the author 'For all those who have lost and are lost still'. I am told by the author that this was a hard book to write and I would say that it is also a hard book to read, but I hope that it achieves the author's worthwhile goal of helping others come to terms with loss.

I have previously read and reviewed some of this authors stories. Following on from those reviews I started to chat to the author via Facebook, and I found out a bit more about her. After one of these chats I downloaded this book, part of a double edition. I have held back from reading it for quite a while, due to the content I knew was in it. But I decided finally I owed it to the author to read this and give my thoughts.

Julie has 3 children. Other people may say she had 3 children, but in my mind that's not right. Regardless what this book is about, this woman has 3 children.

This book is a true story, told by the author herself, about many years in her life, but is about just one particular event. Julie's second daughter, Samantha, was born with several health problems, all related to her heart. At a very young age doctors operated, giving Samantha a much better outlook on life. This life continued as normal until she reached the age of 2.

These 2 short years had seen a lot of upheaval in this families life. They had faced unemployment, eviction, had to live in a mobile home during extremely cold winters. Yet they had made it, with everything life threw at them, as a family.

One fateful day near the end of November 1984 all that changed, in a tragic way. The author describes it as the day Samantha died for the first time.

Samantha became ill suddenly, stopped breathing. She was brought back by the doctors, but suffered irreversible brain damage in the process.

What follows is heartbreaking to read. The author tells us, in detail, exactly how she felt following this event. She tells us how she accepted she couldn't help her daughter when it was time to bring her home.

The honesty within the pages of this book is astonishing, and I take my hat off to the author for sharing this. What she has written is something which a lot of people will find extremely hard to accept. But all I will say is that, unless you have been in the same shoes, the author shouldn't be judged for her decisions. Reading this book will show you exactly how hard the author's decisions were, but they were the ones right for her at the time. She still struggles with her emotions now, and I hope by sharing her story she can accept some kind of closure.

For 17 years life continued the same for Samantha. Life moved on, however, for the rest of the family.The author gained educational qualifications, and also became a mum for the third time, to a son. She saw her eldest daughter marry. She battled with her decisions with regard to Samantha, but moved on with her life as much as she could.

Near the end of December 2001 Samantha died, finally, for the second time in her life.

This left her mum with one main thought - during those 17 long years, where was her daughter? Not physically, but mentally where had she gone? This led the author to write the second part of the double edition I bought, and she created Gone. I will read that part shortly.

Yes this is a difficult book to read, much as it must have been a hard one to write, but it is a story which had to be told. One of the most heartbreaking things within the pages of this book, for me at least, was that the author shares 2 photographs of Samantha, before the event which changed all their lives. I already had so much respect for this author due to her ability to write stories from different genres equally well. Reading this book has made that respect something more, something deeper, and I can honestly say that she is now on my list of favourite authors.

This story was so powerful and wrought with many emotions and conflicting beliefs. It is about a mother who struggles through losing her two year old baby to brain damage that destroys the brain and deforms the vessel to create a non-response child. She is a shell of a human being, who is encased in a vessel that no longer functions without medical supervision. She is vaguely aware of her environment and stimulus does not awake her from her vegetative state. The mother's heart is breaking, with the many decisions that have to be made, the guilt, the anguish, and the emotional roller coaster of experiencing moments of sanity to insanity as each event the daughter may or may not live through a cardiac arrest or an infection tugged at this reader's heart.

This author has taken a plot of a person's life's storm and wrote with an such intensity a sincere in-depth compassionate story that touches an individual soul to empathize with the mother and her personal battle of giving birth to a beautiful girl, losing her to an illness, struggle through her recuperating but not recuperating, and the incidents of life and death, and the agony of losing her for the final time at the young age of two and then again at 19.

This story is very emotional and poetic as the writer describes the journey through the darkness and expressing the mother's deep pain trying to release the anguish and sharing to heal and help others who not fully acknowledging the tragedy of living in this distraught mother's shoes, may find solace in reading this inspirational and heart wrenching story. The story explains the many decisions involved from placing her in a medical home that can take care of her needs on a 24 hours basis and the overwhelming guilt that a mother is in one way abandoning her child but at the same time is a warrior. Accepting this was in the best interest of the daughter. As well as the other responsibilities any parent of a disabled child may have to encounter to give their daughters or sons the rights they deserve, even against difficult circumstances.

This author has written a powerful description of the seven stages of grief, with her heart and thoughts to help others heal through their darkness and share an inspiring journey through the birth, life and losing a child at a young age of 19, this book could be utilized as a therapeutic method of helping others through the seven stages of grief and give hope to parents in similar situations.
This book should be read first and then the amazing one titled Gone, which is based on this powerful catalyst and is phenomenal with a supernatural plot of this mother pondering where her beautiful teenager daughter will go (... in the afterlife...), first when she suffer s through the first event at the young age of two, the in-between years and the concluding of her precious life at 19. It is a reality and fantasy tale that is magical and full of mystery that inspires one to open their minds to the possibility of "what if's".

This is an upcoming author that has amazing insight in herself and is able to express it in a unique writing style creative, honest and refreshing and invites readers to read her other fantasy stories, all in one way or another awakens a reader's mind, heart and soul to the wonders and the unknowns of life and the journey we all travel called life. And what destiny has in store for us and will we be as courageous as this non-fictional mother was in opening her world for all to learn from, strengthen by and entertained by.

Here is the author's Amazon Link and you can Google her name Julie Elizabeth Powell and see more remarkable works by this talented author and mother.
http://www.amazon.com/Slings-Arrows-Omnibus-Edition-ebook/dp/B007OA1S3M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341110530&sr=8-1&keywords=Slings+%26+Arrows+%2FGone+Omnibus