"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!s the advice Teresa Rae Wood gives the listeners of her popular local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and she has t...
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Mar 20, 2009
Susan
rated it: 
Sometimes a book becomes more than a book...for me, usually it is a book of poetry, or a poem in particular, something to hang on to when things are not going well. You know those days/weeks/God help you if it's months, when things just falling badly like dominos, one falling brick after another, until you are wondering if there is an ancient gypsy curse on your family or what. This has been my March. A friend had recommended awhile ago that I read an essay in The Sun by Cheryl Strayed which l
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Jan 26, 2012
Tracie
rated it: 
After everyone freaked out about Wild (which is not available for normal people to read/buy yet) I had to find out who this Cheryl Strayed person is, so I got her first book.
I have a hard time with this star system. Three is too low, but that's what my gut is telling me now that's it's been a week since I've finished it. There were times, a lot of times, where I LOVED this book. It's incredibly well written and Strayed has a way of phrasing super complex emotional/feeling things in More...
I have a hard time with this star system. Three is too low, but that's what my gut is telling me now that's it's been a week since I've finished it. There were times, a lot of times, where I LOVED this book. It's incredibly well written and Strayed has a way of phrasing super complex emotional/feeling things in More...
Aug 03, 2011
Christy
rated it: 
I’ve read and been incredibly impressed with this author’s essays and other work and then found her debut novel.
After fleeing a bad marriage, Theresa moves her two children as far away as possible, finds love, her true self and then at way to young, she gets cancer and dies soon after.
This is a story of love and grief and how we deal with pain, numbing it and then struggling to move through it with grace and compassion. It affected me on a profound level.
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After fleeing a bad marriage, Theresa moves her two children as far away as possible, finds love, her true self and then at way to young, she gets cancer and dies soon after.
This is a story of love and grief and how we deal with pain, numbing it and then struggling to move through it with grace and compassion. It affected me on a profound level.
More...
Jan 20, 2012
Rivka
rated it:
I always think of Anne Carson's preface to Euripides when I think about grief: "Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief." This kept coming up for me throughout Torch.
I found myself watching the writing and reading the book as though a close friend had written it (the writing felt very familiar, as though I read it weekly, as though I stamped some particular turns of phrase into my memory) and it reminded m More...
I found myself watching the writing and reading the book as though a close friend had written it (the writing felt very familiar, as though I read it weekly, as though I stamped some particular turns of phrase into my memory) and it reminded m More...
Jun 26, 2009
Jane
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A friend whose significant other died recently of lymphoma lent me this book, and as I read it I wondered how she could bear to read it herself. The painfulness of the topic aside, it's a realistic look at first, the process of dying from cancer, and second, the effect of the death of a young mom on her two kids and their step-dad. Claire, the daughter, is at the U of Minnesota, and her brother is still in high school in a small Minnesota town. Each family member deals with the death differe
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Jun 08, 2009
Robin
rated it: 
Most of the time I was reading this book I kept thinking that I didn't really like it that well, it was depressing, but as I got near the end I started to like it more. This is the story of what happens to a family when the person who holds everything together dies. How do the two young adult children and the "common law" father handle their lovely mother/wife dying? In a small town where everyone knows each other, sites are set low, and drugs run rampant.....how does everyone handl
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Feb 10, 2012
K2
rated it:
Grief and how it is handled by different members of a rural family is well described in this novel.
The story revolves around how the survivors handle life after the matriarch dies of cancer. Each person has his or her own journey that is vividly laid out and not always with a bow on top. The daughter is in college, the son in high school and the father figure has a plan to end his life just a week after the mother's death unable to think about going on.
Strayed is a good write More...
The story revolves around how the survivors handle life after the matriarch dies of cancer. Each person has his or her own journey that is vividly laid out and not always with a bow on top. The daughter is in college, the son in high school and the father figure has a plan to end his life just a week after the mother's death unable to think about going on.
Strayed is a good write More...
Jan 16, 2008
Tiffany
rated it:
This book tells what happens to a family after the mother dies from cancer. It felt like one of those really great films-Ordinary People or Inside The Bedroom. Vivid and heartbreaking.
Feb 05, 2009
Strayed's debut novel hits with the weight of unwelcome news and tackles head-on some of the most difficult issues a family can face. Critics, who compare Torch to Joan Didion's best-selling memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, praise Strayed's attention to language and her ability to render grief__a topic with which she is intimately familiar, see below__through well-drawn, restrained details. Some critics comment that the narrative drags a bit after Teresa's death. Still, Strayed, primarily an
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Aug 21, 2011
Melissa
rated it:
This book was incredibly interesting in the fact it looks at the life of two young adults who lose their mother to cancer. I wanted it to get down and dirty, though, and it just didn't. I mean, this is tough stuff and although the reader does see the family fall apart, it is done is such a surface way, that I felt a bit gypped. The stepfather, who raised the kids, but ends up shutting down and remarrying very quickly is not explored near as much as it could have been and I wanted it to be. Overa
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Sep 01, 2011
Jill
rated it:
Interesting premise of Avery strong mother, divorce, stepfather and two kids. Stepfather figures heavily n thei lives. Mother dies long death from cancer. Stepfather remarries immediately through grief which leaves the two kds absolutely stranded. Though the book could somehow have deal with abandonment rathe than just he anger of being left. Read to the end though. Boy chil in book is drug dealer. But he doesn't use the drugs except for occasionally which was hard to believe. As I write
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Nov 03, 2009
Brittany
rated it:
Cheryl Strayed writes poignantly classical. Upon immediate reading, you clearly can see that she is not the typical run-of-the-mill modern writer. It was most unfortunate when my highly favorable stance on her writing abilities was shot down time and again when she decided to write so crudely about sex. It wasn't crude in the way a man in a bar might talk about it, but the huge contrast between her clear talent to write and inability to write about sex without swearing really hurt my opinion
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May 07, 2011
Beverlee
rated it:
The story of a family who escape to small town in Minnesota. The mother who holds the family together gets cancer and dies.....the story really is very sad is so many ways and at times so overwhelmingly depressing but I think it is because the mom was so positive and her loss is hard to recover from. I liked the writing style and in the end really like the book.
Oct 04, 2009
Lisa
rated it:
An impressively well-crafted book by a fellow Portlander. The topic (death and grief) is quite heavy, obviously, but the book never feels like "too much" - it's never too sentimental or too melodramatic. The characters are complex and real, and while there is plenty of emotion, it always feels authentic. A very good read.
Nov 01, 2009
sarah
rated it:
'Torch' is a beautiful book that describes the process of losing a mother, a wife, a friend in such luminous detail that you cannot help rethinking your relationship with the people in your life, you cannot help understanding everyone's failings more fully. Cheryl Strayed develops her characters with such complete and unconditional love that it is no surprise to learn the novel is based on events in her own life; it is, however, a surprise to learn how much compassion you have for these characte
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Nov 27, 2010
Karen
rated it:
I read this book a few months after my father passed away and it made me cry. I think the author did an excellent job of portraying the different emotions felt by the family members left behind. Everyone deals with grieving differently and not one way is the right way.
Jan 07, 2009
Amy
rated it:
I realize that some people in this world - like the characters of this book (and its author, I've learned since finishing it) - turn to sex in times of grief, pain, and loss. Since I'm not one of those people, I felt a bit of a disconnect with the characters after several random sexual encounters in the wake of the loss of their mother.
Strayed is an amazing essayist, but it just didn't translate in the novel genre - or not as strongly as I'd hoped. She definitely writes open-hear More...
Strayed is an amazing essayist, but it just didn't translate in the novel genre - or not as strongly as I'd hoped. She definitely writes open-hear More...
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Jan 29, 2012
Allison
rated it:
Almost painful read about a family struggling with cancer, death, remarriage, and kids growing up amid drug dealing, absent parents and choices that they make and have to live with. Still the author totally drug me through it and I didn't want to stop reading.
Mar 08, 2009
Perrel
rated it:
One of the my honest and deep portrayals of family dysfunction I've ever read. The writing and multi-layered characters and well-earned plot/subplots wowed me until the end. It was a book about grief, and I grieved when it ended.
Sep 21, 2010
Marsha
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Interesting book about Joshua and Claire dealing with the death of their mother and moving on in their lives - kind of random in places...not an extremley hopeful or uplifting book although there was some closure at the end
Jun 02, 2011
Sarah
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could see why this might appeal to some auidences but was totally not my style. it dragged on so much numerous times I just wanted to give up reading! I finished hoping there was something that would come from of it but was disappointed from beginning to end.
Aug 02, 2011
Barb
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Very good book, very well written, and very sad. The total destruction of a family unit after a mothers death, and how they find their way back, not perfect, and not quite incredible, but they begin to heal.
Jul 31, 2009
Lindy
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A different twist on the story of a woman dying from cancer- it is mainly about the lives of her surviving loved ones. I thought the characters were very true and you really felt for the pain they went through. I good read, though a little new-agey.
Jan 19, 2012
Sonya
rated it:
Tender coming-of-age, coming-to-terms novel about a mother's death and the ripples it sends to her husband and children. Would have bumped this to a 3.5; I think it could have been slightly shorter. The writing is beautiful and I cared about the characters, wanting to see the book through to the end.
Jan 12, 2012
Mark
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loved this book. has so much heart and truth in it about human nature, the quirks and unpredictability of people as well as the constants of the human condition.
Jun 10, 2009
Brenda
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This autobiographical novel is touching and compelling, sad and funny. It's about a family's dealing with the mother's cancer, but not grim, somehow, at all. I liked it!
May 13, 2010
Denidevine
rated it:
Very sad book about a mom dying of cancer and how her children/family handle her death and carry on....Story starts slow but gets better as it goes along.
Apr 08, 2009
Tracy
rated it:
A realistic book about a family dealing with grief. It is set in northern MN too. It kept me reading even if the characters didn't always make choices I liked.
Sep 11, 2011
Anna
rated it:
this novel was brave, soulful, touching and funny. terrific writing and inspired characters. cheryl strayed is a superstar -- and ought to be better known.
