Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Stars ****

Algonquin Books (2013)
Cancer/Health
83 pages

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Summary: Survival Lessons provides a road map of how to reclaim your life from this day forward, with ways to reenvision everything―from relationships with friends and family to the way you see yourself. As Alice Hoffman says, “In many ways I wrote Survival Lessons to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss. I forgot that our lives are made up of equal parts of sorrow and joy, and that it is impossible to have one without the other. I wrote to remind myself that despite everything that was happening to me, there were still choices I could make.”

Survival Lessons

I bought this book years ago because Alice Hoffman is my favourite fiction author (even though I rarely read fiction) and I thought it was fiction this whole time but it’s not. Oops! I read this during the Shortathon – a readathon for short books as it’s only 83 pages.

It’s written as a guide to surviving a cancer diagnosis but the book is more than that. You don’t need to have cancer to enjoy the book or get something worthwhile out of it. These survival lessons work just as well for other stressful situations or illnesses.  I was smiling while reading it, I loved what she had to say.

If you read just the titles of her lessons you might think they are too simple and that everyone knows those are good things to do but they are things that we so often brush aside and don’t do because of this or that reason. It takes going through something scary like cancer to realize that life is too short to waste time.

I recommend this book to those struggling with any hardships, especially cancer. Or anyone who needs a pick me up or is contemplating their life.

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