Review: A sensitive, heartbreaking story of desperate loss
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 1, 2014
DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE SORRY by Sonya C. Dodd is a perceptive, touching, sad, and often very troubling story told from the point of view of a young woman who feels responsible for her little brother's death. Overwhelmed by guilt, shunned by her relentlessly angry and rejecting mother, Nicky can find no redemption. Even her devoted father is too sad and lost himself to offer her emotional shelter. Her one constant friend, an older boy named Will, loves her, but cannot break through her wall of grief and self-recrimination. In her middle teens, Nicky's life begins a downward spiral from which there seems to be no possible relief or rescue.There is no tragedy that can befall a family more terrible and desolate than the death of a child, especially an accidental death that might have been prevented. DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE SORRY deals forthrightly with this issue, and therefore is often almost unbearably heartbreaking in part to read. However, the emotions and events of the novel ring true, and it is ultimately a hopeful story of the healing power of love.This book is sensitive and very well-written, and deserves 5 Stars for the skill with which traumatic events and desperate emotions are handled. However, it's only fair to caution readers that many of those events and emotions are extremely grim and sad, and it is not an easy read. It is, however, a very rewarding one that will stay with you for a long time.