Back
Rachel Clarke: Dear Life (2020, Little, Brown Book Group Limited) 4 stars

As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many …

Review of 'Dear Life' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is a book that details the life in a hospice, the place where many die when there isn't any other treatment that can be given. It isn't a place many of us experience, or we experience it when we don't want to.

Dr.Clarke (the author, who is also referred to as Rachel when she is talking about stories with her family) tells the readers many stories about people who are in the hospice and the awesome things that the hospice is able to do for them before they pass away. It could be as simple as allowing someone to die at home with no pain, to planning and running a wedding in less than 2 days.

There are multiple stories in this book that will make you cry, especially if you have been a hospital patient, have been in the hospital for numerous reasons, or have had someone you love be in the hospital and die there.

Since Dr.Clarke is based in the UK, there are multiple references to things that the UK has a different way of saying (compared to other countries in the world) which means it may be a bit harder for an international reader to read and fully understand everything without doing some research on certain words.

This isn't a book I could, or want to read in one day. It requires setting down multiple times and picking it back up again when you can. The chapter markers, while good to have, sometimes happen right in the middle of a story and all the reader will want to do is continue to read that story.

I'm sure this is a book that Dr.Clarke's patients and family can read, and be very proud of. If you every wonder what the life of a doctor is when someone is dying then pick up this book and read it.