Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Sep 18, 2011

thewanderingjew rated it:

When I turned to the last page of this profound little book, I simply sat quietly and thought about how awful it must be to carry guilt with you, like a shadow, for most of your life, for something you probably had little or no control over and are completely without blame.
This poignant, honest appraisal of a tragic accident, that took place "half a life" away, grips you in its claws. You are compelled to empathize with the driver of the car and the bicyclist that was killed. Th More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 08, 2011

Julie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2010

Ben rated it:

i feel bad for not liking this more than i do; darin strauss seems like a good guy and life definitely dealt him a shitty hand in the accident this memoir is about. but after the first 50 pages or so, it just felt like all the emotion leaked away, and then never really came back. leaving a hundred or so pages of what i would characterize as gentle rumination. which is fine-- it's certainly not a bad book-- but it's not the mind-blowing or heart-wrenching memoir one might expect from such an even More...

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

Ro rated it:

"Things don't go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future.

But we keep making our way, as we have to. We're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult. I think that's the whole of the answer. We make our way, and effort and time give us cushion and dignity. A More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Rosemarie rated it:

My reaction to this book was so visceral that I hardly know how to review it.

On a beautiful weekend morning in May, shortly before his graduation from high school, Darin Strauss accidentally struck and killed a schoolmate whose bike inexplicably veered in front of his car.

As with a massive earthquake, the axis of his world has shifted forever in ways he can hardly comprehend. Attempts to fully grasp the enormity of the event fail, as his bruised mind keeps slipping around a More...

0 comments like

Jan 22, 2012

Johnpatrick rated it:

Half a Life could easily have followed the route of films like Precious and become hard to watch due to its highly confessional nature, but you never exactly feel like you want to look away from Darin Strauss' account of his struggle with grief. The line-writing itself is beautiful and compelling, and the pacing is extraordinary. There is so much blank space in this book, single page chapters with blank page opposite. While the book clocks in at a scant 204 pages, it would probably be about 150 More...

0 comments like

Nov 12, 2011

Erin rated it:

I found this book to be incredibly moving and poignant. Without question, this is my favorite memoir I have ever read. Half a Life begins with the heart-wrenchingly tragic confession of the author that exactly half his life ago, when he was 18 years-old, he was driving a car full of his friends on their way to play mini-golf when he hit and killed a 16 year-old girl classmate. It would seem positively impossible to go on living a day-to-day “normal” life after such an event, and yet, that is pre More...

0 comments like

Sep 14, 2011

Dachokie rated it:

Somber Tale of a Survivor's Guilt ...

Accidents involving vehicles are such a common occurrence that most of us are numb to the reporting of them. Even driving past an accident evokes nothing more than trigger an act of goose-necking to accommodate a morbid curiosity. Accidents resulting in death often involve no further emotive thought other than a simple acknowledgement of someone else's tragic misfortune ... unless, of course, the death involves that of a family member or friend. Dar More...

0 comments like

Sep 07, 2011

Diane rated it:

Darin Strauss was a high school senior just about to graduate when he hit and killed a fellow student with his car. The aftermath of that accident and how he lived with it are recounted in his evocative memoir Half a Life.

As the mother of two young men, this book was really a punch to the gut. Strauss was cleared of all legal responsibility for the accident in which a young girl turned her bicycle into the path of his car, but the moral responsibility lingered on for many years to come More...

0 comments like

Aug 28, 2011

christa rated it:

Anyone with a vivid imagination and a something ton vehicle who has ever cruised alongside a wobbly bicyclist has probably mentally played out this scene: Biker veers left into the path of the car, defies gravity by skirting up the hood, face pressed into the windshield, body tossed like a limp towel to the shoulder of the road, the thump of flesh bags dropped into gravel, the glint of a reflector and the crush of metal.

In the case of Darin Strauss, this is exactly what happened towar More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2011

Aaron rated it:

"That's the meter you come up with, as you approach forty. If your relationship fills you with a sense of luck, you've chosen well."

As I pointed out

here: http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/vie...

and here: http://sweetwithfallandfish.blogspot.com...

this is one quote which helped me propose marriage to my girlfriend. Of course, seeing signs everywhere is another sign, and it has nothing to do with this book.

Scrollin More...

0 comments like

Jun 30, 2011

Laura rated it:

A Wholly Engaging Memoir

Half A Life by Darin Strauss

Half A Life is not your typical ‘near-death experience’ book or miracle ‘come back’ from major illness story.
It’s a memoir for real people who’ve experienced the unthinkable – a bottomless tragedy, the loss no fault of their own. For those readers, Strauss’s story is an honest, raw-knuckled street fight: before the accident vs. after.
It’s a battle that has no winners, only survivors.
As the autho More...

0 comments like

Jun 23, 2011

Readnponder rated it:

I felt like a rubber-necking motorist driving pass an accident, as I read this book. I have often wondered what a person experiences who inadvertantly contributed to the death of another. Darin was simply driving his car down the road (no alcohol, no hijinks) when a fellow high school classmate on a bicycle careened into the front of his vehicle. Darin was not at fault, yet that doesn't change the emotional turmoil, nor the years-long legal battle. Eventually, the lawsuit was dropped because More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2011

Leslie rated it:

The author was involved in a truly tragic accident as a high school senior, and the impact on his life has been significant. I do not want to diminish any of what he has endured in the intervening years, and I cannot comprehend what it would be like to live with so many unanswered questions and so many "what ifs". I heard the author talk about his experience on NPR more than a year ago, and was enthralled with his story. I expected the book to expand on that.

However, I was di More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2011

Riley rated it:

The first section (about the accident) is choppy, complex, and full of future-self-looking-back insights that make it hard to connect with what's happening in the story. I wish Strauss had been able to commit to the past, had allowed himself to show us what that time was like WITHOUT all the disclaimers and "please don't think badly of me" remarks. He wrote "My fear now is that all of this sounds over-aestheticized, and vague." Unfortunately that's exactly what happened.
More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 24, 2011

Nancy rated it:

When Darin Strauss was 18 - half a life ago - a girl on a bike, Celine Zilke, inexplicably turned left, headed across two lanes of traffic, and struck his car. She was killed by the impact; his life was nearly destroyed by the aftermath of horror, guilt, and shame. HALF A LIFE is Strauss's meticulous, intensely detailed examination of his struggle to make sense of the tragic event that altered his life. It is a memoir of a sort that I have never encountered - I have to call it a memoir of gui More...

0 comments like

May 16, 2011

Laala rated it:

“A tragedy’s first act is crowded with supporting players: witnesses crimping their faces, policemen scribbling in pads and making radio calls, EMS guys unfolding equipment, tubes and wheels.” — Darin Strauss, Half a Life

Darin Strauss’ Half a Life is an incredible book. When he was a teenager, a girl he knew from school swerved into his lane on her bike as he was driving. He hit her, and she died.

“Everything between past and present hadn’t disappeared but grown incredibly s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 25, 2011

Jill rated it:

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an old Mariner kills an albatross – a bird that symbolizes the soul – and as a result, is forced to wander the earth and tell his story of torment before he becomes “a sadder and a wiser man.” In ways, this is an apt comparison to Darin Strauss, who, at age 18, inadvertently kills Celine Zilke, whose bicycle swerves into the path of his car.

This is a very personal tale about a tragedy that shaped the author’s entire life, and he tells it unflinchi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2011

Jeannie rated it:

When a life is lost in any kind of tragic accident, our thoughts turn to the victim and his/her family. This book goes beyond that and takes you into the heart and mind of the person who survived the accident-who was driving the car that caused the loss of life. Although he was not at fault, Darin Strauss's life changed forever on that fateful day, in that split second and this is a story of how he "didn't" cope with what happened for many years. Survivor guilt is what he lived with, w More...

0 comments like

Apr 16, 2011

Barbara rated it:

Darin Strauss presents his new work “Half a Life” in an all-consuming, page turning reflection of the most significant event he ever experienced – the no fault death of a bicycling schoolmate from impact with a car he was driving. The cadence of his narrative, from the mind numbing, shocking and public immediacy of the event, to the distant jarring of unexpected reminders decades later, draws a realistic picture of the disability that comes when guilt and shame inhabit a trauma survivor. Outwa More...

0 comments like

Apr 12, 2011

Erica added it

It's really strange to read a memoir written by someone you know about something so personal. Darin Strauss was one of my college writing teachers. I took his class more than once and between Darin himself and some of the other people there that class shaped a lot of who I am as a writer. This book is about how he accidentally hit a classmate of his with his car and killed her when he was a teenager, and though he had definitely mentioned that in class once, it was in an offhand remark. But this More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 10, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Here is the first line of this memoir:

Half my life ago, I killed a girl.

The girl who died is Celine Zilke—a 16-year-old girl who was attending the same Long Island high school as Strauss (who was 18 at the time of the accident). He takes us through what he can remember of the accident, in which Strauss’s car hit Zilke as she was riding her bike and swerved into his lane. He memory of the accident is in bits and pieces—almost as freeze frame images.

EXCERPT: T More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 09, 2011

Johanna rated it:

Half a Life is Darin Strauss' memoir about his involvement in a no fault accident that killed his classmate Celine Zilke when he was eighteen. The book is very short (191 pages) and jumps right in on the first page to the accident (first line: "Half my life ago, I killed a girl").

Strauss writes with such careful clarity and honesty that it is impossible not to go back to your 18-year-old self and wonder what you would have felt and how you would have reacted in his situati More...

0 comments like

Mar 26, 2011

Alisha rated it:

I had very conflicting feelings while reading Half a Life. For some reason, when I think about a car accident in which someone died, I automatically assume that one driver was at fault. It’s much easier for an outsider to think this way. If someone was drinking and driving and it results in someone’s death, then you know who to blame: the person who got drunk and drove. It’s very black and white. However, those “no fault” accidents tend to be myriad shades of gray.

That’s basica More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 23, 2011

Julie rated it:

I loved Darrin Strauss's novels, and I think he's a top notch writer. This memoir was solid, but left me feeling a little underwhelmed. It's the story of the car wreck that killed a girl in his high school; Strauss drove the car that hit her, and although it was an accident pure and simple, of course he has spent the next 20 years grappling with his guilt.

Technically-speaking, the writing is good, and the unfolding of the main story is well-paced. I also understand why he wanted to wr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 06, 2011

Karen rated it:

One moment changes the course of the author's life. In the last few months of his senior year in high school, Darin Strauss struck and killed a bicycling classmate. He wasn't drunk, wasn't reckless--in fact, the victim veered in front of his car--but these facts are cold comfort in the face of the grim truth--that he was driving and she died. Shorly after the victim's parents tell the author that they did would never blame him, they sued him for a millions of dollars.

Such a brief More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2011

carmen d. rated it:

I thought Darin Strauss' memoir, "Half a Life," was beautifully written. His honesty was refreshing and relatable. It made me question how we carry the weight of what we cannot undo, how it shapes and forms and changes us. How it seems that sadness can plague you infinitely. How we never know when the instant may appear that will color the reminder of our time. How what we carry inside, also lives outside, even though we often don't recognize it. And ultimately how forgiveness com More...

0 comments like

Dec 26, 2010

Esme Pie rated it:

I've been waiting for this for months from the library. Based on the reviews, I expected to be blown away, but I wasn't even mildly impressed, much less very interested.

Quickly summarized, this is a memoir written by a now-adult author who accidentally hit a classmate with his car when he was a senior in high school, and this accident resulted in her death. In the end notes the author states he originally thought this would be told in a longer essay--perhaps 40 to 50 pages--but h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2010

Judith rated it:

I like this author a lot. After I read his last novel, I sent an email to his publishing company because I spotted a typo which bugged me. I was surprised to receive a personal email response from the author himself, and I was smitten. He was so genuine, interesting, and friendly as a new puppy. I was star-struck for life. So naturally, I am ashamed to say I didn't really care for his new book. It is his first memoir and based on a dramatic true life event. A month before his high school g More...

4 comments like

Oct 29, 2010

Charlaralotte rated it:

This book is beautifully typeset. Great leading. But then, it's a slim book, so they could stand to let the text air out. I also liked the half dust-jacket. Glad they didn't try to have an illustrated cover. The simple gold-stamped cloth cover works well for the story.

The beginning of the book is well done. The part that was excerpted as a short story that I read...don't remember where.... Yes, the accident itself and the immediate aftermath. Loved the narrator's in-depth exploration More...

0 comments like