Sarah ThebargeReseñas

Thebarge tells two stories in this book: her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment/her world falling apart, and that of befriending a refugee family with five little girls.

The jumping back and forth between the two stories/timelines was incredibly frustrating. Her story of breast cancer was mildly interesting (I learned a few things!) and her friendship with the refugee family more so, but the two stories were really not connected and I felt that Thebarge should have written two different books!

Also, I agreed with other reviewers who stated concerns of a self-congratulatory, white-savior mentality on Thebarge's part. While I think Thebarge was doing her best to present their story accurately, she just didn't know the family well enough to tell it; she was missing so much information, probably due to the language barrier.

Note: There is a bit of profanity in this book.

(And the chapters are incredibly short, which means there are an awful lot of half-blank pages - what a waste of paper!)

I'm still trying to figure out what I thought about this book. I did like it but I wish it had tied together a little more. At times I felt like I was reading two separate memoirs. Usually I shy away from books that make a lot of references to God but I think it was powerful to read about Sarah's experiences. All in all, a good read but not one I will read again and again and again.

A memoir written by Sarah Thebarge about her breast cancer at age 27 that leads to the loss of all her identity and dreams and her slow climb back to life. Sarah Thebarge was raised as a PK in a fundamental home with quite legalistic rules. When she is diagnosed with cancer, undergoes several surgeries and complications, loses her supposedly future husband, and her career comes to a screeching halt, she loses any trust in God. Sarah moves to Portland, Oregon where she meets a mother had her 5 children. They are immigrants from Somalia and are struggling to survive. Sarah befriends them and in doing so, she finds her way back to health and also her way back to God. This book gets either very low or very high reviews. I suspect it is because this book is written from the Christian perspective and most people seem to be quite intolerant of Christians talking about their perspective. Sarah's struggles with cancer, her deep depression, her anger, her questions of the God of her upbringing are all very real reactions. Writing this memoir would have been cathartic and healing. The finding her way back by forgetting her own misery and helping another person is a way to heal. In this book, Sarah shows through example how to see those who are invisible. The ones we all walk past without a second glance. While this is a book written by a Christian woman, it does not push God on anyone. It is only the story of the author's own search for meaning. Her friendship with the refugees was never about evangelism. She simply saw a need a found ways to meet those needs.

This book (audio, read by Kirsten Potter) was a free audio book from the AudioSync program in 2018.

I started out loving this book but then she got way to evangelical and had to skip all that stuff and those chapters. However the story line was very good and it was great to hear about refugees and the struggles they have that we "regulars" never see.

A memoir. I seem to be reading more memoirs these days than I have at any other point in my life. Maybe it's because more people are writing them? Or because people are taking memoir more seriously? Or because I'm taking memoir more seriously now that I've hit the wise, old age of 26? Probably, it partially has something to do with the rise of blogs and the coveted blog-to-book-deal dream.

I think this one was a blog-to-book-deal. At least, TheBarge mentions a blog. I tried to find it, but all I found was a wiped template with a few pages advertising the book. Now that a publisher is paying her for her story, the blog is dead.

This makes me sad for blogs.

Sarah TheBarge does have quite the story, and certainly a story that belong on paper, reaching more people than her blog would have, perhaps. At the age of 27, her life fell apart when she discovered blood on her shirt and, upon squeezing her breast, realize something was very very wrong. A double mastectomy. And then, it recurred. Essentially, TheBarge lived through a nightmare.

A few years later, in a new city, trying to restart her life, she meets a Somalian woman and her children on a bus and a new part of her story begins as she gets to know the family and helps them survive in the new and unfamiliar country.

It was a touching story. Emotional. Difficult to read. There were times I had to close the book on my commute home or face the embarrassment of crying on the subway. But, this book is also problematic in two very different ways.

1) Are you familiar with the White Saviour Complex? Admittedly, I was warned before I started this book that its pages are filled with it, so perhaps it was all the more glaring for me, this idea that Westerners, specifically white westerners, will save Africa, that, without us, they will be lost, suffering savages. This complex is generally attached to the attitude of Westerners when they go to African countries, but I couldn't ignore its presence in this book as well. TheBarge muses more than once about what would have happened to Hadhi, the Somalian woman, and her children if she hadn't met them on the bus that day. The problem with this? Hadhi is not empowered by TheBarge's attitude. Her work to care for her children, to eke out a life for them in this new place goes unacknowledged.

I would never say that we shouldn't acknowledge our privilege and recognize that we can help those who struggle here at home or in other countries. I'm not saying that TheBarge should have ignored this family on the bus. I'm not saying that she shouldn't have done all the things she did, bringing them gifts, helping them make ends meet. But her attitude about what she was doing irked me. Help, yes, but don't assume that you are the only thing protecting them from sure death and suffering.

2) TheBarge grew up in a strict Baptist community. The book is strongly Christian, which, being a Christian myself, I actually enjoyed. She makes some beautiful realizations about God and suffering as she struggles with her illness and her relationships. But, as she described her upbringing, her church, and the community in which she was raised, I became frustrated with what she wasn't saying. She shrugged off the emotional abuse, in one breath using it for shock value and in another, dismissing the actions of others as normal, as not their fault, as justified and rationalized. She holds the hurt of being abandoned by her church community and her boyfriend as she struggled through treatment at arms length, unwilling to acknowledge how absolutely shitty they were to her. It bothered me. Sometimes, I think people use religion as an excuse to be terrible to their kids, their spouses, those who are, in some way, under their control and no one ever holds them to their actions.

At the end of the book, I felt a little bit like TheBarge wasn't necessarily ready to write her story yet. It felt raw at times (see above, crying on the subway), but at others, she seemed to be holding the reader or her experience at arms length, laying out facts and actions without exploring them further, without letting the reader into the deep, gut-wrenching pain she must have gone through. Her journey was powerful, but in this book, I don't think she allowed it be.

http://www.thisdustyhouse.com/2013/05/this-dusty-bookshelf-invisible-girls-by.ht...

Sarah's personal memoir portions were boring and "woe is me" - emotional masturbation. Totally not my thing. Learning about the Somali family was wonderful though. I recommend this book *just* for them.

I enjoyed listening to this book and Sarah's story. The chapters went back and forth between the past (her breast cancer story) and the present (her growing relationships with a Somalian family - the Invisible Girls). Although it was sad at times, it was inspiring too and I learned more about how difficult a cancer diagnosis and treatment can be as well as learned about the challenges immigrants face.

Wonderful true story of a young breast cancer survivor who encounters a Somalian family living a below-poverty line existence, and then, together with the help of some friends, reaches out and helps them with some basic needs and forms a familial bond with these "invisible girls' and their mother. Thebarge's writing is beautiful and moving, even though she jumps back and forth in time in each chapter. Inspiring story of struggle, healing and love.
Highly recommend.

Sarah Thebarge changed the lives of a refugee family of Somali Imigrants. She is also a cancer survivor. Both of these stories make for a good book, combined they ought to make a great book. But The Invisible Girls seems like it was taken straight from Sarah's blog, which I can't find online but she mentions it at least twice in the book. There is a little bit of jumping around within the two timelines, separate of the intentional back-and-forth story-telling. Other reviews have described it as fragmented & disconnected, and I would have to agree with them.

The ending seemed a little rushed and cut-off, she mentions in the last chapter that the Somali family end up being put in her lap within a few months, but there are no added details-either she's trying to set this up for a sequel, or it just wasn't important enough for her to elaborate for her readers' benefit. The epilogue didn't tie up either of the storylines-it was more of a forced example of evangelism; it was not written in a way that made me feel the emotional connection the author or her friend should have had with the streetwalker they spoke with.

If there is a sequel I will probably read it, even if it also feels like a cut-and-paste job from a someone's blog.

This literally is one of the most emotional and beautiful books I have ever read.

Having survived her battle with breast cancer Sarah Thebarge felt she needed a change in her life. Leaving behind her pre-cancer life she moves to Portland to start over. A chance encounter on a bus changes her life in more ways than she ever could have imagined.
Hadhi, a Somali refugee trying to raise her five daughters alone, in a country where everything is so unfamiliar she is not even aware of how to turn on her oven, happens to be on the same bus that fateful afternoon. Hadhi’s youngest daughter engages Sarah in a little game and Sarah inadvertently places the little girl’s toy in her pocket. Having exchanged telephone numbers Sarah feels compelled to return the toy to the young child. Thus begins an important friendship for both women.

This book is a very poignant memoir of two women fighting two different kinds of battles to survive what life has handed them. I found Sarah’s honestly about her fight with breast cancer moving and, the courage she had to help a family much less fortunate than herself was inspiring. Although I felt compassion for Hadhi and her situation (with much personal disappointment in myself) I found myself becoming almost angry with her at some points of the story because it seemed as if it was easier to put Sarah in the difficult situation of solving some of her problems for her rather than making an honest effort to try and manage on her own. It gave me much to ponder even after I closed the cover on the book.

A very personal insight into both overcoming breast cancer and the plight of refugees (women and children) I commend Ms. Thebarge strength, patience and commitment to making a difference.

Ture story of a very brave young woman in her 20's finds new purpose in her life after her devestating diagnosis of breast cancer demanding a double mastecetomy . She becomes a suragate social worker for a single Samali refugee who was abandoned by her husband. Takes place in Portland , Oregon.

Decimated by breast cancer, Sarah has decided to start her life over, in Portland Oregon. While riding the bus, she encounters a young mother and her daughters. Hadhi, a Somali refugee, and her five young girls are barely keeping her family afloat. She speaks very little English, is confused by seemingly simple things, i.e. how to use the stove. Sarah steps up and begins helping the family, showing them basic American survival skills.

Overall, I thought this book was both heartbreaking and uplifting. It was hard to read about the decimation of her young body and the toll that cancer took on her emotional and physical state. Despite her struggles, she essentially adopted a refugee family, giving everything she had to help them survive. Overall, I thought the book was well written and well paced.

Its interesting how a sudden change in fortune or as in this case health can set you on a journey that alters the quintessential aspects of a person's soul and belief system. Sarah Thebarge's account of being diagnosed with cancer and her chance encounter with a somali family is one of those stories. This beautifully crafted memoir is a journey that cuts you to the bone as you share the challenges that both she and the somali family faces. An interesting comparison between seemingly opposite lives and lifestyles.