Book review: Everything I Never Wanted To Be
Everything I Never Wanted To Be is a fascinating title for a book. What on earth happened in author Dina Kucera’s life that didn’t turn out the way she planned?
Turns out, everything. And I do mean everything.
I have to admit I struggled with writing this review. Not because I didn’t like the book. I loved the book. Couldn’t put in down, in fact.
I always like to give you the take-aways from a book, and what you can learn from it. The problem was Dina’s life is so foreign to mine, I thought I couldn’t even begin to relate to it.
Let’s just start with the blurby on the back cover:
“Her grandparents were alcoholics. Her parents were alcoholics. She is an alcoholic and pill addict. Her oldest daughters struggle with alcohol and drug addiction, and her youngest daughter started using heroin at age fourteen.”
Then we add an unemployed husband, unemployed brother-in-law who lives with them, a mother with Parkinson’s Diseases who lives with them, and a grandson with cerebral palsy. Now throw in a smattering of attention deficit disorder, bi-polar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.
Everything I never wanted to be? No kidding!
But a funny thing happened as I worked my way through Dina’s honest and rawly humourous book. I started to discover life lesson take-aways! Such as:
- as a parent you will screw up. Apologize from your heart, then let it go. Clinging to mother guilt serves absolutely no one.
- you cannot help anyone who does not want to help themselves. Love them to pieces, but let them crash and burn no matter how much it hurts you.
- there is a difference between loving your family members and liking them. There are times you just do not like them, but you definitely still love them.
- the medical and insurance systems are not actually designed for the sick. Advocate, advocate, advocate!
- at some point you have to walk away from that soul sucking job. Life is too short.
These are universal truths. I have no personal experience with mental illness, addictions, or poverty. I do have experience with screwing up as a parent, having to watch my children make mistakes, at times not liking family members, advocating on behalf of an ill family member, and dealing with a soul sucking job.
Everything I Never Wanted To Be is an odd mixture of a tough read and an easy read. Tough because I wanted to wave a magic wand and make the harsh realities of Dina’s life go away. Easy because the book is extremely well written, and full of candour, love, and faith.
We all experience our own life tragedies and challenges, but I will leave you with this very simple but incredibly insightful thought from Dina:
Every story has a happy ending if you tell it long enough
You can find out more about Dina and Everything I Never Wanted To Be by visiting http://everythinginever.com/ You can get 30% of the purchase price of the book by entering the coupon code ‘Dina’ upon checkout.
The book review was sponsored by TLC Book Tours. You can read other reviews of Everything I Never Wanted To Be by visiting Knowing The Difference on November 17th and A Fair Substitute for Heaven on November 18th.
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A wonderful review Eliza. And your points from her book are ones I will take to heart.
I don’t have kids, and my family seems pretty normal, but I’ve had friends in trouble.
Loving someone to pieces but letting them crash and burn when they won’t help themselves were the words I needed to read about a family I have been trying to help. They don’t try to help themselves and I got caught in the middle. I need to walk away and at least feel peace for what I did to that point.
Thanks for your most excellent book review. I will have to check this out.
@Barbara – getting caught in the middle is a one of the downsides of being a natural born helper. Been there and so done that! The trick is to learn to ‘read’ when people are truly ready to help themselves.
I love your attitude though about walking away at peace with what you have done. That is a truly graceful attitude.
wow, Eliza! Great review. Dina and I have so much in common, I think I would also have a hard time reading the book, but it sounds like a great one to read. (The alcoholism in parents/grandparents, poverty, crazy family are all part of my life story. Mother guilt is another, so the comment about, “as a parent you will screw up. Apologize from your heart, then let it go,” really resonated with me, as did the other four. Been there, done that!”
This is one book that will go on my to read soon list!
@Linda – I believe, no matter what our life circumstances, to some degree we have all been there done that. The book is now available to win in a give-way by going here: http://silverandgrace.com/give-aways2 If you are not selected, then this certainly sounds like a book you want to follow up on. It is raw, but well worth the read.
Thank you Eliza!!! I hope everyone has a great week!!!:) Dina
@Dina – it was my pleasure. There are very powerful messages in your book, and I was more than happy to get them out to the Silver & Grace community. Thank you so much for dropping in, and I look forward to hopefully more interactions with you.
Beautiful site… and I have actually done all the above computer mistakes. The one that makes my husbands nose bleed is when the computer is going slow and I turn the power off with my foot. Relax, sir. This is how I fix it:) Dina
@Dina – my husband and I cannot work on the same computer and the same time. I am an instant gratification gal and expect my computer to work at lightening speed. When it doesn’t, I am fast on the CTRL-ALT-DEL combo. And if that fails, REBOOT … although not with my foot, because I have a laptop and that would require a really fancy yoga position to accomplish. My husband’s always squawking “Wait! Wait!” … ya, it’s not pretty.
I love the list of lessons you took away from this book – they are so SO true! This sounds like a great book – thanks for being a part of the tour.
@Heather – my pleasure. And I am thrilled to have Dina join the Silver & Grace community.
Eliza, your review of this book is really sharp. Well done!
@Suko – thank you. Like I said in the review it was a challenge at first, but then a whole new level of understanding shone through.