Review: True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver - Cindy Eastman

Poignant and emotional essays which describe the life of a caregiver.

Expected publication date: September 17th, 2024
Genre: Biography, Parenting & Family
Find it here: Goodreads, Amazon
Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley for selecting me to review this ARC. All views are honest and my own.

My star rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

My heart goes out to Cindy Eastman, not only has she had an incredibly long journey of being a caregiver to her elderly father, but she also had to relive the experience to document the life this gave her in this emotional and candid book.

When reading this book, it's clear that becoming a caregiver was never in question for Cindy. She loved her Dad and therefore there was no option. As a caregiver myself (for my daughter - the other end of the generational scale), I can truly resonate with how that feels. No one can look after your loved one like you can as they don’t have the emotional connection. This makes life incredibly tough.

I would recommend this book to anyone in a similar position to Cindy as she does a very good job of explaining how the caring role feels to her and how she manages to deal with it.

My only negative is that the book was somewhat repetitive and covered areas of her father’s medication in too much detail. I would have much rather heard more stories about him and the wider family in the early years to really understand the true dynamic of the story. I did find it hard to relate to the individuals too much as there just wasn’t that much in depth information about anyone.

A huge thank you to Cindy Eastman and NetGalley for the ARC.

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