Review: I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from First to Read, along with a paperbound Advance Reader Edition.

4.5 Stars

Maggie O'Farrell's memoir of her brushes with death covers the gamut from listening to that inner voice and avoiding not just disaster but rape and murder to the event that was the inception of her fascination with near-death: suffering an almost fatal bout of encephalitis as a child and having to learn to walk, write and be a normal child again, slowly and gruelingly, over many months in physiotherapy. That chapter, Cerebellum was stunning. From her naughty walkabout days as a younger child to the startling revelation about what parenthood brings to the table when it comes to risking or skirting death's clutches, O'Farrell writes with crystalline prose, recalling the many events in her life that could have gone otherwise. Perhaps her most poignant writing is saved for the brushes with death that her child, who suffers from allergic and immune dysfunction, has endured.

This is a beautiful book with an episodic nature that is similar to that in an anthology, albeit these stories are real. This is a perfect read for that week in which you slowly wend your way through a good book.

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