A Hope for Emily by Kate Hewitt – Review by Colleen Noyes
A Hope For Emily by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As any good parent knows you spend your whole life trying to decide what is best for your child. You spend seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years struggling to be sure that you don’t make a mistake or jack them up.
How can you protect them? How can you help them? How can you be there for them? How far would you go even if someone told you there was no hope left? What if that person was the other parent? What if that person was every doctor? What if that person was every nurse?
Rachel is a mother who is at her wits end, fighting what feels like an uphill lonely battle not just against what’s destroying her child, but a battle against doctors, the child’s father, and her own inner struggles. This woman must be so incredibly exhausted, but brave. She is a fighter who won’t let anyone decide who she is or what she gets to feel.
Eva is a woman with such a complex marital relationship but even more so a complex relationship with herself. She struggles to figure out who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be. She has an inner struggle of self-worth and forgiveness that can be felt throughout.
James is a man who seems to make everything very black and white. I felt like he often took the easier road, the less traveled road and it wasn’t always the best road. However, don’t let this deceive you for long. As the author brings this story to life the relationships are an integral part of everything going on. You will feel the love, the anger, the despise, and the unexpected camaraderie from the least expected person.
As a parent, reading this story I felt the anguish, the love, the pain, and the intense heartbreak from beginning to end. The author did an amazing job bringing the reader into the fold and I admit I cried several times. Sometimes, the ache in my heart was so much I had to take a small break from reading to compose myself. This is one of the best books I have read this year and I intend to grab all her books. Make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy, and you give the people around you warning that you will be an emotional wreck.
