Review: Without a Word: How a Boy's Unspoken Love Changed Everything

Title:  Without a Word:  How a Boy's Unspoken Love Changed Everything

Author:  Jill Kelly

Genre:  Memoir/Christian Biography (September 2010)

About:  Football star Jim Kelly and his wife Jill find out their infant son has a rare, fatal illness and is expected to survive for only 14 months. This is the story of how Hunter Kelly, who succumbed to Krabbe Leukodystrophy at the age of 8, changed their lives forever.

Thoughts:  Absolutely loved this story. Jilly Kelly does a fabulous job of opening her heart, her life, her marriage, her struggles, and her reality to readers. Several pages of pictures are included, which is always my favorite part. I'm a visual person, so to be able to read the story and see the pictures made it all the more heartbreaking and inspirational. The book is faith-based, and I enjoyed reading about Jim Kelly's transformation from philanderer to faithful servant.

Source:  Library

Why I Chose:  This was everything I love in a book all wrapped in one - medical-related, sad but inspirational, lots of pictures, memoir, sports.

Recommend?  Yes, definitely.

Rating: 5/5

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Review: I Will Carry You: The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy

Author: Angie Smith

Genre: Memoir (2010)

About: The author finds out when she is 18-weeks pregnant with her fourth daughter that the baby, Audrey, has conditions which leave her "incompatible with life." She decides to carry the pregnancy to term for as long as the baby lives. Angie Smith is the wife of Todd Smith, a singer in the Christian group Selah. She has a popular blog called Bring the Rain.

Descriptive Words: Cope, loss, hope, peace

Thoughts: I ordered this book from my library just because of the title. I had no idea that the author was the same person whose blog I found a while back. You know...one of those you find by clicking on one blog who mentions another blog, so you click on that, and so on? In her blog Bring the Rain, Angie Smith chronicles her pregnancy with Audrey and the devastation of finding out the baby would not survive. The blog was so popular - and her writing so beautiful - that it's not surprising she turned her story into a book.


Boy, did this make me cry. I know my blogger friends won't be picking this one up any time soon, but I loved it. The pictures, the scripture, the writing, the love, the honesty, the emotions... Mmm... Beautiful. I like reading books that make me cry. To me it means the author did a great job. Obviously the premise of the book is sad, so to most people it wouldn't take much to make them cry, but I'm a tough cookie because of all the memoirs I read. Angie Smith is talented. If you like books that are sad but inspirational, this is a good one.

Source: Library

Why I Chose: The title of the book sucked me right in.

Recommend? YES, if you can "do" sad. (Don't you like a good cry every once in a while?)

Rating: 5/5

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