It’s a good thing I’ve gotten over my “no books that make me cry” roadblock, or I would never have made it past page five of this book. Natalie Taylor is visiting her sister when she gets word that her husband of only 18 months has been critically injured. Josh Taylor is declared dead on Father’s Day in 2007 – four months before the birth of their child. The heartbreak starts right from page one.

Not only is the book written in a conversational, easy-to-read style, but there are bits of humor thrown in. Of course it’s possible that not everything I found humorous was meant to be funny, but you can blame my weird sense of humor for that. Such as when Natalie (a high school English teacher) wrote, “When I was in college, we read this Emily Dickinson poem. I have no idea what it was called or what it was about, but then again I never really know what any Emily Dickinson poem is about.” As someone who rarely gets deep, hidden messages in poetry and literature, I found it amusing that an English teacher admitted that she didn’t “get” Emily Dickinson.

Natalie is just like most new moms: tired and overwhelmed. So she invents a Fairy Mom Godmother. “My fairy godmother would wear her hair in a banana clip with strands sticking out everywhere. She would dress in an oversized T-shirt covered in spit-up stains, faded black stretch pants, worn-out running shoes, and one ankle sock and one tube sock. She would be the fairy godmother for new moms.” Motherhood is a reminder that life goes on and experiencing one tragedy doesn’t mean that everything else in her life gets easier.

But there is more to this book than tragedy. It’s about finding reasons to smile and be grateful, family and friends, and motherhood. It’s also about growing up. When her husband died, Natalie was twenty-four, a college graduate, a teacher, and a mom-to-be. But, at twenty-four, she was still very young. In her journaling of the following year, we see her maturing and changing her attitude toward her in-laws, her students, and even complete strangers. ( )

I love this book!! Young pregnant Natalie goes through the horror and pain of losing her husband and painfully describes what her life is like after his death. She is brutally and painfully honest and I am grateful to her for this. Nobody should have to go through what she did but life happens that way for some people. Thank you for writing this book. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was heartbreaking and honest, with a bit of humor thrown in once in a while. I have never really suffered grief of a death, but I have had a lot of traumatic things happen so I still do identify with her feelings. My only complaint is that she uses SO MANY names. I couldn't keep track and I kept trying to back and figure out what family member or friend each person was, but then I had to just give up and go along with it and not try to figure out who everyone was. I'm pretty sure Chris and Mathews were the same person, but I can't say for sure.. I wish she had just been more consistent with the names and not felt the need to name every single person she knew.

Also, I won this book from first reads, so I guess it was a special copy, but I was also shocked by the number of typos, as someone else pointed out. That's not the fault of the book or even the author, though. ( )

I didn't think I could ever understand the pain of losing a spouse, but I had a good glimpse of this darkness through this book. Natalie Taylor wrote with great honesty and sincerity. At times I felt like slapping her for being selfish and judgemental, but mostly I just wanted to reach in and give her a great big hug for her enormous loss and applaud her courage and strength in living with this loss. The book is very real and I especially l loved reading about her work as an English teacher as she made references to several books and the passages in them which she felt spoke to her about her situation.

Death of a spouse is something I greatly fear and dare not think about, but this book was an eye opener, and helped me not to be afraid to think about it.

First published on Booking in Heels.

This is Natalie Taylor's story. It starts the day her husband dies and ends sixteen months later on their son's first birthday.

Natalie's journey from wife to widow to mother is heartbreaking, blackly funny and will move you to laughter and tears as she makes it across that finish line. And you have no doubt she will make it because Natalie is a warrior and a woman to cheer for.

I can't help but cringe as I type out that summary. It's just awful. Although it's fairly accurate about the plot, the tone of the book is absolutely nothing like that. To start, it's not funny. It's just not, in any way, shape or form. Secondly, the last sentence makes Signs of Life seem like some empowering, feminist self-help novel about coping with grief, and it's not that either. It's just a perfectly average woman writing about the sixteen months after her husband, Josh, dies. I wouldn't describe her as a warrior and yes, she is a woman to cheer for - but so is every widowed, pregnant newly-wed.

The theory goes that every word of this book (minus a few name changes) is completely identical to her diary entries of the time, but obviously I'm not sure how true that is. On one hand, some parts (particularly the ending) seem so unrealistically twee that I can't help but think they're completely fictional. They just tie in too neatly with the whole 'woman finding herself after tragedy' shtick, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, there are parts that I most certainly would have edited out if I were Natalie Taylor and not dedicated to preserving the truth. I understand that her husband and father of her unborn child had just been killed, but the abuse she subjects her in-laws to in this book is horrendous. She just can't seem to understand that Josh's other family members are suffering too - she doesn't appreciate anything they do for her and constantly insults their very personalities. She's just so ungrateful and whiny. I'm not criticising her attitude per se - obviously I've never been widowed at 24 and so can't judge the feelings of those who have. I just wonder at her judgement in choosing to publish something that can only serve to alienate those trying to help her.

Mrs Taylor is also incredibly judgemental about anybody who isn't... well, Mrs Taylor. She joins a support group for single mothers and spends the entire time complaining how their situations can't possibly relate to hers because she's not a) 18 (in fact, she's an oh-so-worldly 24) and b) she didn't choose to raise her baby alone. This actually grated on me quite a lot - who says that the other women there were responsible for their own situations? Natalie does eventually come to terms with this, but for me the damage was already done.

Anyway. It's a very accessible read and I did get In The Book Zone while reading it. It uses a very chatty tone and it's easy to get sucked in. The English teacher aspects of the book are interesting, if not always relevant, as she talks a lot about the books they're studying in class, like The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter. Thing is, unlike most books about books, she actually explains what they're actually about instead of assuming you already know. Must be the English teacher in her coming out. Her opinions of her students are also interesting, but it says a lot that the thing I liked most about Signs of Life are the parts unrelated to the actual topic.

The best way I can explain it is that I liked Signs of Life, but not Natalie Taylor. I finished it in a day and a half, but it's not something I'd ever want to read again. ( )