Book Review: How to Walk Away

How to Walk Away
Katherine Center
4/5

I was super hesitant to read this book because the cover and general summary gave me Me Before You vibes and I'm still traumatized from that read. I'm happy to report that this book is a lot more uplifting, says a lot about life and resilience, but also had a lot of bittersweet moments that had me literally screaming.

Margaret has an accident and she comes out with burns and a spinal injury that leaves her unable to walk. That was heartbreaking and frustrating and had me feeling all kinds of sympathy for her. She loses a lot of what previously defined her and that's always tragic. She wasn't flawless in her recovery, though I think that she took it a lot better than most people would. She also had to deal with people significantly worse than what I think anyone would hope to deal with in that situation. I literally wanted to punch people in the face, I can't imagine letting the way she got talked to go, like ever.

The epilogue reminded me of the ending of Legally Blonde the Musical, it was super similar in the way things were summed up. The trash guy got a trash ending, everyone else got kids and happiness. I did appreciate that her disability wasn't glossed over, and it wasn't overly-focused on either. It became a part of who she was, she came to terms with it and she lived past it. I was getting weirdly nostalgic during the epilogue even though I read this in one day. What kept me from five stars was how many issues were ditched in favor of focusing on other weird plot points. Like the legality of it- I wanted a certain scumbag to get sued or go to prison or something, she definitely didn't sign a waiver of any sort- and then just the magnitude of the tragedy which this family suffered. Difficult to put into words, but everything worked out too well in both good ways and bad ways. That sounds contradictory, and it totally is, it just felt like everything was resolved as either bad or good.

After that confusing paragraph, I'll end by saying that it's a great book that I'd recommend to people. If it had taken me longer than a day to read it, I may have lost interest or rated it lower, but as it stands it was a very enjoyable little read.