History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life

I didn’t lose a family member to suicide, but I have lost friends to it. This book brought me on the verge of tears many times. It’s so well written and I would recommend to others who have lost ones to suicide to read. Near the end, it gave me some sort of closure and maybe it does to others too. It gives you information of what is going on inside the mind of a suicidal person and lets you know you’re not alone in your grief, guilt and suffering. You can tell it brought the author so much pain to write it and you can almost feel the pain she goes through over the loss of her sister. It’s different than the pain she has of losing other loved ones who died by other forms besides suicide. If anything it brings you to peace knowing they are no longer suffering with unbearable pain. It gives you a better understanding of suicide and why those you know chose to commit it. It shows that even though some say time heals, the unbearable pain that those who commit suicide have just gets passed on to those that love them. Very sad and sometimes hard to read, especially for someone like Kim that was young and had so much going for them. It shows you it takes time and events and feelings to build up for a person to get to a point of such unbearable pain that they see no other way to end it. Maybe this gives peace and closure to those that lost someone to suicide. In addition, it shows anyone can take their life, and many times it is people so loved by others with such a bright future ahead of them.

Jill's younger sister Kim committed suicide at the young age of 21. Jill has spent years trying to not only cope with her loss, but also make sense of her sister's decision. Jill talks about going through her sister's writing, as well as police reports from Kim's death, to try to piece together the full picture. Through her journey, Jill learns about herself as well as her sister.This book was intense, for mostly personal reason's. Before we were ever married, we lost a member of my husband's family to suicide, which is what really drew me to this book initially. This book certainly sparked a lot of emotions and conversation among my book club. The book raises a lot of questions about mental health from a family systems perspective. There were a lot of literary references, which I mostly greatly appreciated, and will certainly appeal to many readers. However, readers not as familiar with the works and authors discussed will not get as much out of them.The thing that struck me as endlessly frustrating was the great casual tone to so much of the topics covered. Marital strife of Kim's parents, Kim's drug use, and both Kim and Jill having teenage abortions are mentioned in such casual manner, yet never delved into in terms of the possible impact of these things on Kim's mental state. It felt shocking to me that Kim's family seemingly knew she was deeply troubled, taking drugs, in an abusing relationship, yet did very little (at least as described by Jill) to step in.The writing could have been a little tighter for my taste, as the style seems to shift between poetry, prose, and objective factual writing. It seems a bit like a stream of consciousness and for me it made it difficult to read. All in all the book was interesting, but difficult to read

As a long time admirer of Jill Bialosky's poetry, I was intrigued to learn she'd written a memoir on her sister's suicide. Having just had a close family member survive an extremely serious suicide attempt, I had to read this.Knowing Bialosky to be an academic, I was not surprised to learn she searched through literary texts as well as current research in a search for an answer the eternal question Why? Anyone who has experienced a loved one's suicide or attempted suicide is simply haunted by this question. Having dealt too often in my life with suicide and attempts by family members and friends, I found Bialosky's final conclusion on the question of why to be the only one possible in far too many cases: some wander away and never make it back.I believe the book would have been better if most of the poetry and literary quotations had been left out. However, I did like the somewhat journal-like style of the book as I think it's the only way a person in pain can really write about the subject she's written about here.What I can't believe is that this book would have PR placement in entertainment magazines of any type. This is not a misery memoir, nor is it just a book about another drug abuser crashing and dying. This is an extremely well written, literary, heartfelt attempt to understand why her sister killed herself and what is told about her sister was enough for me to gain an understanding of who she was. No, the book isn't really ultimately about the suicide victim as much as it is about the author's efforts and struggles to understand, so I think maybe a different title would've better served readers in their decisions to read the book or not.I don't mean to go against the grain with my review. I can undertand many of the reasons people have for not liking the book. Still, I loved this book and found it very helpful and insightful in my own struggle to understand why. I believe it took a great deal of courage to write this book and even more to publish. My hat's off to Bialosky for doing so.

i didn't finish it. I found i couldn't get into it.

I thought it was very well written, certainly an optional read, I woul recmend it to someone that has lost a loved one to suicide