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Book Review: Holding on to Hurt by Charlotte Roth

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HoldingOnToHurtAbout the Book

“I dread that every day I live, I’m one day further away from my life with Scottie”.

Irene Hurt has always dreamed of having a large family with her adoring husband Bruce. That dream is shattered when her doctor performs a hysterectomy after the birth of her only son, Scottie. Though heartbroken, Irene accepts the outcome and cherishes every moment with her son and her husband, until…the day she gets the call every mother dreads. Scottie is injured in a mass school shooting and is rushed to the ICU, where he’s put into a medically induced coma to wait out his fate. Devastated, Bruce pulls away and even tries to convince Irene to remove Scottie’s life support, to save his son from a life of lesser existence. But, Irene refuses to give up hope. On her journey through grief, denial, anger and finally, acceptance, Irene discovers more about the events of that tragic day, the boy who shot her son and then took his own life, and the husband she thought she knew and could trust. Will Scottie pull through and, once again, be the glue that keeps this family together? Or, will Irene accept that sometimes, the best thing a mother can do for her child is let go? Set in the darkest hours of winter in Seattle, Holding on to Hurt tells the gripping story of one mother’s fight to keep her son alive, no matter what she has to sacrifice.

Format: ebook Publisher:   Pages: 229
Publication: 20th May 2017 Genre: Contemporary    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Holding on to Hurt on Goodreads

My Review

Irene Hurt seems to have the perfect life: a lovely home, a handsome husband (Bruce) and an adorable son (Scottie). It may seem a little cheesy but it certainly provides a telling counterpoint to what’s to come. (As a Brit, the only part of this perfect life I found hard to understand was having a shooting range in a barn in your garden, and a culture where it is acceptable – and commonplace – for private individuals to own handguns.)

When Scottie is caught up in a shooting on his school bus, Irene and Bruce’s perfect world comes crashing down around them. Escaping serious bullet wounds but suffering a severe head injury in an effort to escape the bullets, Scottie is placed in a medically induced coma. After several days of no change, his doctors are increasingly pessimistic about his prognosis. Not just about to what extent he will recover but whether he will recover at all.

Irene and Bruce each react very differently to Scottie’s injury and prognosis and the author chooses to have these fall along pretty much stereotypical gender lines. As Scottie’s nurse, Hannah explains:

‘It’s kinda like in a marriage. The guy calls the plumber when the toilet is broken; the woman takes care of the friend with a broken heart when she comes knocking on the door. Guys only like things that can be fixed.’

Irene and Bruce’s divergent views about Scottie’s future start to create deep fault-lines in their previously rock-solid marriage.

Irene’s instinct is not to leave her son’s side and to hope for a miracle; that he will awaken from his coma and be largely unaffected by his injury. She believes that if she clings to this hope strongly and steadfastly enough that everything will work out alright. For her, it is the intensity of her belief that is crucial. In pursuit of this, she spends every minute at his bedside, speaking to him, telling him stories, playing his favourite movies, surrounding him with family photo’s in the belief that somehow he can hear or sense the things she is doing.

Bruce’s reaction is outwardly logical and less emotional. He reads all the data about severe brain injury, listens to the doctors and is convinced that Scottie would not want to live with any degree of disability. He finds it even hard to look at his son surrounded by monitors and tubes.  It’s just not ‘his’ Scottie anymore.   However, it turns out that Bruce’s reaction is actually more complex. In fact, I would have liked to explore the story more from Bruce’s point of view because it is revealed later in the book there are things in his past that help to explain his reaction.

I won’t say any more about how things turn out for fear of spoilers but safe to say the emotional journey that Irene and Bruce go on is fraught with pain, hostility and unwelcome revelations. Things get said and done that may not easily be forgotten. I found myself empathising with both of them at different times and in different ways. However, this is also a story of hope, determination and undying love.

A couple of minor things in the story didn’t ring quite true for me. As respite from her vigil at Scottie’s bedside, Irene is persuaded to make a trip out with her sister-in-law, Red. I won’t say where they go or what they do while they’re there, but I just couldn’t imagine Irene doing that in the state she was in. A walk in the park or by the river, maybe, not that. This is only a minor niggle because otherwise the author managed to completely draw me into the story and convey at least an idea of the physical and emotional toll of being in a situation like this. Hopefully, it’s a situation few of us will ever have to face personally.

I received a review copy courtesy of Xpresso Book Tours in return for an honest review.

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In three words: Moving, emotional, compelling

Try something similar…Home by Kate Hughes (click here to read my review)

CharlotteRothAbout the Author

Charlotte says: Obviously, I love, love to write. Mostly about real people – how we feel, think, dream, and interact with each other. My characters are very relatable and I always fall in love with them as I follow them on their journey. I’m originally from Denmark but moved to the States ten years ago with my husband, a little chubby baby Alfred, and lots of hopes and dreams. We now live in Seattle and have added two more members to the family—the twincesses Emma and Olivia, and, oh well, Einstein, a tiny bearded dragon.  When I’m not “Mom,” I spend all my free time writing, re-writing, researching, reading, observing people, and making stories and characters in my head (and speak with them a little, too). My favorite spot is my local Starbucks, where my imagination runs wild – or works as a sponge soaking up whatever I encounter. The world is by far the greatest inspiration!

Connect with Charlotte

Website ǀ Facebook ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

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My Week in Books

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MyWeekinBooks

New arrivals

A restrained week for purchases but there were a few incoming review copies to add to the existing pile.

TheGirlWithTheDragonTattooThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (ebook, free)

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

AGentlemaninMoscowA Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (ebook, Kindle deal)

On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.

RivalsoftheRepublicRivals of the Republic by Annelise Freisenbruch (paperback, review copy courtesy of Duckworth)

In the absence of honourable men, who will defend Rome? The body of a Vestal Virgin is dragged out of the River Tiber… A senator bleeds to death in his bath…And as the authorities turn a blind eye, Hortensia, daughter of the capital’s most celebrated orator, feels compelled to investigate a trail of murders that lead to the dark heart of Rome. Flying in the face of her husband’s and father’s attempts to protect her, rebelling against the constraints imposed upon her sex, she is drawn ever deeper into the corrupt underworld that lurks in the shadows cast by the city’s all-powerful elite. When fires begin to rage in the slums and more key witnesses are silenced, only one man can save Hortensia from becoming the next victim of a conspiracy to destroy the Republic: Lucrio, the damaged ex-gladiator to whom she already owes her life. Then the secrets of his own tragic past threaten to subsume them both…

TwilightEmpressTwilight Empress by Faith L. Justice (ebook, review copy courtesy of the author and HF Virtual Book Tours)

One woman battles the coming Dark Ages. Twilight Empress tells the little-known story of a remarkable woman: Placidia, sister to one of the last Roman Emperors. Roman Empress and Gothic Queen, Placidia does the unthinkable: she rules the failing Western Roman Empire. A life of ambition, power, and intrigue she doesn’t seek, but can’t refuse, her actions shape the face of Western Europe for centuries. A woman as well as an empress, Placidia suffers love, loss, and betrayal. Can her intelligence, tenacity, and ambition help her survive and triumph over scheming generals, rebellious children, and Attila the Hun?

AManCalledOveA Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (ebook, Kindle deal)

At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots – neighbours who can’t reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d’etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents’ Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets. But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so? In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible…

WomanEntersLeftWoman Enters Left by Jessica Brockmole (ebook, review courtesy of HF Virtual Book Tours)

In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone call: She has inherited the estate of Florence “Florrie” Daniels, a Hollywood screenwriter she barely recalls meeting. Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.

Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival.

In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our traveling companions than by our destinations.

On What Cathy Read Next last week

Blog posts

Monday – I took part in the book blitz for Fender by Brent Jones.

Tuesday – I took part in the blog tour for Path of Lucas: The Journey He Endured by Susanne Bellefeuille, an engaging and heart-warming story of one man’s life based inspired by the author’s own family history.

Wednesday –Wednesday is WWW Wednesday, where I and other book bloggers share what we’ve been reading, are currently reading and plan to read next. I also shared my Q&A with Neila Young, author of the cosy mystery Brewing Up Murder. We conversed about her book, its inspiration and the invaluable role of coffee in the writing process.

Thursday – The subject of my Throwback Thursday post was The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This is one of the books on my Classics Club Challenge list so it was great to have the motivation to actually tick something off the list for once. Terrific book, as well.

Friday –I reviewed The Scribe’s Daughter by Stephanie Churchill and, thanks to Stephanie, I was able to share a teaser of its sequel, The King’s Daughter. What’s more, to celebrate its publication on 1st September, I’m running a giveaway to win a ecopy (.mobi for Kindle) of The King’s Daughter. Still time to enter!

Challenge updates

  • Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge – 101 out of 104 books read, 3 more than last week
  • Classics Club Challenge– 5 out of 50 books reviewed, 1 more than last week
  • NetGalley/Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2017 (Gold) – 44 ARCs reviewed out of 50, same as last week
  • From Page to Screen 2017– 7 book/film comparisons out of 12 completed, same as last week
  • ARC August – 3 ARCs out of 6 read, 1 more than last week
  • The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Shortlist 2017 – completed

On What Cathy Read Next this week

Currently reading

Planned posts

  • Book Review: Holding on to Hurt by Charlotte Roth
  • Q&A: An American Cage by Ted Galdi
  • Throwback Thursday: Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
  • Book Review: The Wardrobe Mistress by Patrick McGrath

How was your week in books?  Literary sensation or remainder pile?