Blue Sky July: A True Tale of Love, Light and 'Impossible Odds'

The story is wonderful and inspiring. My child's difficulties are nothing in comparison but there were still similarities. I could see how the mother got locked into treatments. I can't afford them but would try everything if I could.

The author writes partly in prose partly in poetry and I really enjoyed this although I felt some polishing was still needed. The transition could be a bit clunky and I found myself trying to read the prose to a poetical rhythm which didn't work and I annoyed myself! However, it is a different approach to the masses and worked perfectly for the subject matter.

Go girl!

an amazing book (1/1 people found this helpful)

This book was amazing. Touching and inspirational. I also loved the way it was written. Very easy to read

A moving story, awkwardly told (0/2 people found this helpful)

This is a review of the book as a book. As to its subject and author, I have nothing but admiration, respect and humility in the face of what they achieved together. The story was deeply moving, but the style of the telling at least occasionally flawed.

There's no doubting the intensity and the moving nature of the story, but Nia Wyn's sometimes awkward and self-conscious writing can make it heavy going. She can't seem to resist flexing her muscles as a poet, which she isn't. This is odd, seeing as there's really no need to dress up the story: it's powerful enough as it is, and doesn't benefit from her frequent attempts to, what? Give it 'added value' in the telling? There are too many lapses into weak, pseudo-verse, which is always mannered and never satisfying. She's not a poet and, as an apparently experienced journo, should know enough about writing to acknowledge that and stick to her prose, which gets better the less she tries to sugar-coat it or pump up its literary credentials.

The other thing that I found infuriating was the constant splitting off of odd lines at the end of a paragraph, or writing one-line paras. Why would she do this? To add impact? To emphasise a point? I prefer to find my own meaning in a text, and not have it thrust at me like that. Some of the things she isolates in this way are powerful, but they would have had the same power - more - as part of a paragraph, without Nia Wyn metaphorically flicking my ear and asking if I'm paying attention. There's really no excuse for this sort of writerly pretentiousness, and it ruins the story for me. At such moments, and they are far too frequent, I feel she's losing me. Her hectoring somehow devaluing the sanctity of the story, which is endlessly moving in its own right and not in need of this sort of self-conscious writing. I couldn't help but compare the awesome simplicity of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Like many people, I am sure, I came across this book when it was Radio 4's Book of the Week. It moved me to tears for its power, and the simplicity and directness with which it was told. It seems now that that must have been down to the Radio 4 editor, who had the good judgement to cut the more ponderous passages and the ill-judged flights into cod versification. It's just a shame that Wyn's own editor and her own judgement hadn't done that already. It would have been a shorter book by about a third, but all the more powerful for it. So three stars, for a book that should have been a no-brainer five, because of the occasionally mannered and pretentious style.

And those infuriating paragraph breaks.

If you think you won't like this book - read it! (2/2 people found this helpful)

I thought I wouldn't like it. I thought it would be over-sentimental and depressing. Instead, it's just amazing. The story of Nia's journey with Joe is very moving, but it's the quality of her writing which captures you on page 1 and propels you through to the end as if you're reading a thriller, not a book about a family's monumental struggle against disability. The book is just astonishing in every respect.

A true, true tale (8/8 people found this helpful)

My child has profound and multiple difficulties and this was the first book that I have ever read that has captured the pain and the joy of the experience of motherhood in these circumstances. I cried and shouted out in relief in equal measure, in recognising my anguish, my anger and my love for my child in every beautiful and resonant line. Thank you so much Nia.

Blue Sky July: A True Tale of Love, Light and 'Impossible Odds'

Nia Wyn

Reader Reviews:

A humbling tale of a mother and child (0/0 people found this helpful)

an amazing book (1/1 people found this helpful)

A moving story, awkwardly told (0/2 people found this helpful)

If you think you won't like this book - read it! (2/2 people found this helpful)

A true, true tale (8/8 people found this helpful)

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