So well written with much personal information and a great deal of information about leukemia and stem cell replacement. I could have been put off by the fact that the author is famous, rich, and lives in New York City, but her story and experiences resonated with me on a human basis. She shares her grief and fears about surviving cancer and the death of a sister and husband, as well as the joy of close, personal friends and finding a second love. ( )

About a year after the death of her beloved husband, Delia, then in her early 70's, meets and falls madly in love again with a man named Peter, which she calls a late life second chance. As she and Peter were making plans for their life together, Delia was diagnosed with a rabid form of leukemia, the same disease that had killed her sister Nora several years previously. Harsh chemo treatments brought Delia only six months remission, an Delia was told that the only thing that could save her life was a bone marrow transplant. This was an option that her sister Nora had decided against, but Delia decided to go for it, even though the chances of success were only 20%-40%.

As I said I was mostly interested in the transplant aspects of this memoir, and it was interesting for me to read about her different but the same experience to what we went through. (She even has a Havanese dog, like we do). Unlike me, who wanted to know everything that was going on in great detail, she didn't want to be kept too informed. (She was like my husband in that regard). But her new husband Peter is/was a doctor, so he was able to closely monitor what was happening. She lived under the same strictures we did for many months: no going out, limited visitors (no young children, possibly sick people),no pets, no houseplants, no fresh flowers, no deli food, no sushi, no fruit without skin, etc etc.) One big difference is that because of her celebrity status she had access to her doctors (and their resources) that ordinary patients never have. She had their personal phone numbers and could call/text any hour of the day or night with concerns big and small. (I'm not saying the care we got was substandard--it was excellent, but we were just one patient among many).

A few of the quotes that resonated with me:

"I am officially a cancer patient now....My life is not mine anymore."

"I am living on what many cancers patients live on: the promise of science."

3 stars ( )

(42) I really did not like this memoir by a screenplay/novelist whom I have heard of but never read. This is about her husband's death, then her meeting someone new in her 70's and getting married, and then her own battle with leukemia and a bone marrow transplant. Her sister was the more famous writer (that I also never read) that died of leukemia fairly recently as well. It started out decent - but it went downhill and became incredibly indulgent and seemingly written for her friends as opposed to the larger public who couldn't possibly be interested in the quotidian exchanges she blathered on about.

There are many reasons why this could have; should have resonated with me. And yet, I thought it was so poorly written - it just did not. The more recent "Between Two Kingdoms" by Suleika Jaouad was a much more poignant and better written memoir of a bone marrow transplant. And Joan Didion's "A Year of Magical Thinking" was better at depicting the grief of losing a spouse. I really feel she had such material and it could have been powerful. Instead it read like a catalogue of visits with friends and an embarrassing revelation of emails and phone calls, texts with the man who becomes her new husband. I thought it was painful to read and would have been horrified if I were this man. And its not because she is in her 70's - honestly, the writing was jejune. Way too over the top with the healing vibes and over the top declarations of love and support from friends. Everyone is just so wonderful, aren't they?

Anyway, this book had everything I dislike about memoirs. I am glad I got it from the library. ( )

Goosebumps, chills, tears, chuckles, repeat!! This book will make you want to drop everything and become a stem-cell donor, adopt a Havanese dog, and fall in love again at 72. I admit that when I first started listening, I was like, she's not her sister...but then the more I listened (and the more she repeated that herself), the more I realized what an altogether wonderful thing that is. I also realized, after IMDBing her, that SHE wrote the screenplay for not only You've Got Mail, but also Mixed Nuts!! Her writing is so plain but still somehow so powerful that I sobbed so hard one day on my way to work that I ended up turning into a dance school drop-off line instead of taking my exit onto the highway. Highly recommend. ( )

She lost her sister and her husband in short order, but then unexpectedly at the age of 72, she is given a second chance at love. It is an article she wrote lambasting Verizon after a frustrating and aggravating contretemps she had with them, that brings her this chance. The man, who will become her husband, also lost his wife, was wonderful. Then fate strikes and the genetic based cancer that killed her sister comes for her. What follows is a herculean struggle forget life.

Every once in a while, one picks up a book that hits one hard. Is so incredibly relatable that it's uncanny. You see two in a half years ago, shortly after the new year, I contracted RSV and because of my severe asthma, it landed me in the hospital. That night, though I don't remember this, I was placed on a ventilator and put in a medically induced coma. My family was told that I had a fifty, fifty chance of survival. Well obviously I survived but like Della I spent months in physical therapy. Never as extensive nor as serious as why she went through but so many of my thoughts, as related in this book, were thoughts I shared. Also in her book she says, "Trauma is so isolating" which it is, but also, feeling half way normal again, I entered the world of Covid as she did.

Her honesty, her ability as an author to bring her struggles to life, touched me. I thank her for sharing her story, because I'm sure like myself she has touched many. ( )