Wave
A Memoir
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4.2 • 285 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • One woman's searing account of losing her entire family in a tsunami.
“The most exceptional book about grief I’ve ever read.... As unsparing as they come, but also defiantly flooded with light.... Extraordinary.” —Cheryl Strayed, The New York Times Book Review
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century
In 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family—parents, husband, sons—were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Deraniyagala's debut book recounts her life after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami took the lives of her parents, husband, and two sons in Sri Lanka. After being pulled from the muddy wasteland that was formerly the jungle surrounding her hotel, Sonali is taken to a hospital where the reality of her family's death creeps into her psyche. As their bodies are found, Sonali begins to withdraw from the world, searching the internet for the best way to kill herself, drinking every drop of alcohol she can find including bottles of aftershave and tormenting the renters of her parents' now vacant house. As she gradually returns to her life, she begins to find the absence of things intolerable, nearly breaking down when she doesn't hear her husband or sons in the house, secretly eating chocolate in the guest room. This is a story not about overcoming grief and loss, but of embracing reality in the face of pain and sadness. It packs an immense punch for being so short or perhaps because it is so short. Conquering the clear difficulties that come with talking about such profound absences, Deraniyagala has written a book teaming with beautiful ruminations on the bittersweetness of memory and the precariousness of life.
Customer Reviews
Stunning
Moving portrait of grief
So Brave
Well done. The pace and the details were just right. The lives fascinating. Every aspect of this experience was pretty clearly described, and not overly dramatized. It felt like this is the only way she could relay it. But I’m not entirely sure if she held back or I did in evoking my full emotions. Maybe both. She definitely has my utmost compassion and respect.
Very moving
Beautifully written book about loss and how trauma affects memory. Incredible story.