This was MARVELLOUS!
The concept with getting to know someone’s life - not just the protagonist’s life but the lives of all the other characters too - through letters and emails is just so well delivered with this book.
The protagonist, our correspondent, Sybil Van Antwerp, has always been writing letters (and once it became a thing, emails too). Letters to all kinds of people. Her friend, her children, authors, a Highschool child whom she knows through his father, a man from customer service of a DNA-business, and lately an eye doctor. The brutal news of her declining eyesight and pending blindness forces her to take a good look back on her life and all that came with it. The good, the bad, the fun, the grief - everything.
She’s a tough and somewhat prickly but also lovable woman who used to work as chief clerk to a judge and had three children (of which two grew up and are still around).
It’s so charming to read of and about her. To get to know her and the people she’s interacting with through the correspondence. Her very blunt, honest and sometimes stubborn nature simultaneously is and isn’t the most enamoring thing about her. It’s frustrating when she digs her heels in the ground just because she can, or because she wants something. But then again, her way of doing and saying/writing things also leads to so many wholesome encounters and moments.
I love how she’s getting to the point of being thoroughly honest with herself first and foremost. How she pushes through the pain of looking, actually looking, at the not so shiny parts of her life, and acknowledging them. I love how the people in her life help her with seeing clearer while her own eyes are getting dimmer.
And last but certainly not least, I love how she learned to forgive not just other people but herself aswell.
There’s so much I’d like to point out but for the sake of a more concise review I’ll leave it at that: The fact that I could see Sybil’s life before my eyes with just the correspondence and with no other scenes in between is a huge testament to the author - not least because it emotionally moved me at so many places.
If you like these kinds of novels (similar to 84, Charring Cross Road, etc.) you’ll love this one, I’m sure. But I hope the ones who haven’t yet read a book like this will pick this one up still - it’s precious!
