by Alice Eve Cohen

Thirty years after her death, Alice Eve Cohen’s mother appears to her, seemingly in the flesh, and continues to do so during the hardest year Alice has had to face: the year her youngest daughter needs a harrowing surgery, her eldest daughter decides to reunite with her birth mother, and Alice herself receives a daunting diagnosis. As it turns out, it’s entirely possible for the people we’ve lost to come back to us when we need them the most.

Although letting her mother back into her life is not an easy thing, Alice approaches it with humor, intelligence, and honesty. What she learns is that she must revisit her childhood and allow herself to be a daughter once more in order to take care of her own girls. Understanding and forgiving her mother’s parenting transgressions leads her to accept her own and to realize that she doesn’t have to be perfect to be a good mother.

This was sort of an odd book for me, but yet it was enjoyable. First off it is a memoir, which is not my normal genre although I'm trying to read a few books this year that are out of my comfort zone. Secondly it deals with the idea of apparitions, which is just "way out there" for me. Once I got over both of those things, I found myself really liking the story, there were many parallels to my life. I could relate to the loss of her mother when she was young as my mom passed away when I was in my 30's. While my relationship with my mother was wonderful, I've read enough books where it wasn't, to understand the angst the author experienced. One of my daughters had to have major back surgery as a teenager, and my girls are adopted. All of these play a role in this book. I appreciated the writing style and found it very easy to read and care about the family. The year in the title is also a play on words since it's not only talking about the author's year, but the last year of her mother's life. It was an interesting take on storytelling that I found pleasing.

I'm participating in the BookSparks summer reading challenge, and this was the first book for the week of May 4th. Check the link if you want to find out the rest of the books in the list, looks like some good picks.

Overall a short, sweet book that reads really well. If I could get over my issues with "people appearing from the dead", I would have likely rated it higher.