I wanted some light reading and picked up Handle with Care at the grocery store. Several hours later I wonder why I bothered.
It is, of course, an important story, a tribute to the sacrifices parents make when their children are chronically ill or cursed with a congenital defect. It is, of course, important that people know about rare conditions such as osteogenesis imperfecta. And she writes well. I care about all the characters even if there seems to be something missing.
I read the first one hundred pages and then decided that I didn't want to wade through the middle of the book. So I skipped about 350 pages to get to the legal part of the book and read from there to the end. Which means I didn't give the middle of the book a fair shake, I know. Then at the end I wanted to throw the book into a sewage canal.
So I won't be picking up her books anymore. Why not, when clearly her intentions as an author seem to be good. Why not when her writing isn't half bad. She even has a sense of humor. This book evoked the feelings I have had in Sunday school, in overly earnest political meetings, and sometimes in settings with Friends (as in Quakers) who are notorious for earnest intensity. Everyone is sincere and intense about everything, even taking a vacation. When they are n't intense, they are guilt ridden and resentful. There is never a let up, there is never current joy, only wistful joy. It is as if the hallmark of humanity is victimization and suffering. Endless, unrelenting suffering followed by guilty realization of how lucky one is to be less victimized than someone else. It becomes more like a voyeuristic journey into sadomasochism to watch everyone suffering and feeling guilty about suffering or not suffering. Why read a book in which every broken bone a sweet 6 year old child endures, through no one's fault, is detailed fervently. "Just imagine the unimaginable pain!" its author seems to cry through page after page after page. Enough already!
