Review: The Dead Wife's handbook

'Today is my death anniversary. A year ago today I was still alive.'

Rachel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life - until the night Rachel's heart stopped beating.

Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can't forget her, Rachel can't quite let go of them either. Caught in a place between worlds, Rachel watches helplessly as she begins to fade from their lives. And when Max is persuaded by family and friends to start dating again, Rachel starts to understand that dying was just the beginning of her problems.

As Rachel grieves for the life she's lost and the life she'll never lead, she learns that sometimes the thing that breaks your heart might be the very thing you hope for.

Review: I think the blurb of this book captures what is inside it more than anything else I've read recently. I was so worried that this novel was going to upset me and make me sad about the thought of losing my own mum or dying but it really didn't, at no point was I inconsolable with tears. This is a novel about seeing someone's life from their perspective after they have finished living it. How very day things can affect those we've lost without us even realising it and the feelings of a mother who has died before their child has had the chance to grow up. 

I found this novel entirely compelling and beautifully written. Each chapter ends with some sort of wonderful reflection which are each a book on their own and will be uplifting if that particular chapter has had something a little more difficult to cope with. The structure is just a women seeing her husband and her daughter over the course of a year in what would've been her life, her glimpsing them every now and then moving on and growing, nothing more complex than that and I loved this bok for that simplicity and that ease of reading. 

Rachel is a woman just like you and me, she gets angry and sad and jealous just like any other person despite the fact that she is dead and I found this really engaging and make her like her lots. She even gets jealous when her best friend gets friendly with someone else! I loved her little family, Ellie is sweet and max is trying his best to be sensible and do what is right for his daughter, he doesn't always get the on the mark but then that's just the whole human error thing and makes him equally loveable for trying his best to do the right thing. Max's family and Rachel's family are also a bit part of this book highlighting the importance of family during difficult times. 

A lot of peoplpe had recommended me read this book, other authors as well as bloggers, but I was worried about the content but it's not sad and it's not scary, it's real and it's lovely and so I would recommend this book to anyone out there! It obviously deals with someone looking on from the afterlife and this author hasn't tried to define what that is, just every now and then we get a nod to a mist surrounding Rachel or her looking down from the clouds. I think this was a rally brave move from this writer and makes me love her writing even more! This should definitely go on your to be read pile now!