The Kindest Thing- Cath Staincliffe- Book Review

RATE:★★★

Pages: 261

Author:Cath Staincliffe

Published: April 2010

This book is very different from anything I have ever read in a while yet I found myself unable to put it down. I wanted to know what would happen. The story is basically about a women who assists in the killing of her husband as he has motor neurone disease. Which is a disease that has no treatment and would have left her husband unable to move nor even to swallow. This lead him to beg her to end his life peacefully.

But throughout the whole book it makes you wonder, if put in that situation where you loved someone so much that you wanted to spend every last minute with them even if in pain or you loved someone so much that you would answer to their beg for help and save them from undeniable pain that was to come. Did she do the right thing to assist to her husband’s murder? Is she truly a murderer even though it was out of love and death was already calling for him anyways? One to its own, life experiences and opinions vary from person to person.

Pro’s- Very good storyline…. I quite enjoyed the way this was written, throughout the book the author shifted from the past to the present. Linking the pieces to the puzzle one would say. This book also showed a light of such situations that neither of us would ever imagine being in, making us question what would we do if placed in her situation. The pace of the book was just right not rushing nor dwelling in pages of the same thing. I also found myself laughing at a number of times, the main character Deborah was in fact rather funny considering the situation she was in.

Cons- The ending I felt was kind of fizzled out and I felt they could have been more done to end the end the story with a better ending than the one that left me with questions about their family, her future and did they do this? Did they do that? Another thing if I think of it was it would have been more interesting to have heard more from the husband, what he thought, what he had said and how he felt. What caused the disease, why was he so persistent on ending his life on his own terms? Didn’t he want to spend every lasting second that he had with his family, even indulge in the pain? All these questions were left in air….Maybe it added mystery I don’t know.

Would I recommend it? Yes, aside from the minor exclusions pointed out above the story was well written and will also open your mind to things that you would not normally even think about. A very interesting read indeed.