Between Two Kingdoms
by Suleika Jaouad
JENA’S REVIEW
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Author Suleika Jaouad gifts us with a three-act play in her memoir of her life spent in the kingdom of illness, and then the kingdom of recovery. “Act One” is the story of her life in the kingdom of the well and healthy. We meet a young and talented woman, finishing college at Princeton, ready to seize the world. “Act II” is the overwhelming story of her multi-year travails against leukemia. ‘Act III” starts out as a “is that all there is?” period of her life. How do you go between the kingdoms of critical illness and then the possibility of life?
Much of what Ms. Jaouad tells us is based on her well-known blog, “Girl, Interrupted.” But she experienced so much more than an interruption. Her life was totally knocked apart, and then she was slowly and carefully able to rebuild it. She survived, but then did not know how to live. Her writing is honest, stark yet lyrical, and she shares it all- family, dating, relationships, the details of her illness and treatment. Her humor mixes with her pain and anguish. (Her brother started calling her “Suleikemia”.)
In “Act III”, after a year of depression and feeling untethered after her arduous treatments were over, she comes up with the idea to go on a solo road trip across America. She travels from the East Coast to the West Coast (she just learned how to drive!) and she visits some of the people who connected with her during her illness. All of the folks she visits became friends through her blog and all are lovely people. Probably the most unusual was the man she chatted with on death row.
The book ends as she returns to New York, ready to accept whatever mind and body she currently has. This is a long story, a consuming story, and well worth the read. I received an advance digital review copy from NetGalley and the Publisher Random House (thanks for granting me my wish!). This is my honest review.
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Suleika Jaouad, is an Emmy Award-winning writer, speaker, cancer survivor and the creator of The Isolation Journals, a global movement cultivating community and creativity during hard times.
Born in New York City to a Tunisian father and a Swiss mother, Suleika Jaouad’s career aspirations as a foreign correspondent were cut short when, at age 22, she was diagnosed with leukemia. She began writing the acclaimed New York Times column and video series “Life, Interrupted” from the front lines of her hospital bed, and has since become a fierce advocate for those living with illness and chronic pain.
She served on Barack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel, and her advocacy work, reporting and speaking engagements have brought her everywhere from the main stage of TED, the United Nations and Capitol Hill to a maximum security prison and a two-room schoolhouse in rural Montana. When she’s not on the road with her 1972 Volkswagen camper van and rescue dog Oscar, she lives in Brooklyn.
About the Author
