A family has been devastated by the death of Rich, who left a wife and ten year old autism spectrum son, Ollie. Dying from cancer, Rich selected gifts for each family member that would be a special surprise, and Ollie helped to pack and mail them. Somehow the gifts were mixed up and the book deals with the emotions of all those involved. This character driven story explores the personalities of the family.

Thanks to NetGalley for sending me this ARC. It will be published in June 2021.

This Shining Life is a book narrated by various family members in the weeks before and after the death of Rich, husband of Ruth and father of Ollie. The first half of the book (part 1) jumps back and forth across time and across perspectives and makes it very disjointed and hard to really become engrossed in the story or sympathetic to any one character. By the last 1/3 of the book, the story is told more directly and it became a better and easier read. In the description from NetGalley, I was intrigued by the idea that Ollie, a boy described by his father as smart and strange, was determined to solve a puzzle and clues left for him by his deceased father. I anticipated more of a game with clues dispensed throughout the story... Sort of a mystery or fun that the readers shares with Ollie. But that isn't what happens. Instead, Ollie is left confused and obsessed with finding out why his father gifted specific items to each of his relatives and what those gifts and relatives can teach Ollie about the meaning of life. Ultimately, this book had too much sadness and depression with not enough corresponding uplifting moments (perhaps because the character who knows how to make any moment fun is the one who dies?!?) to be as enjoyable as I'd have liked.

NOTE: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Autistic Ollie recently lost his father, Rich. Before passing, his father had Ollie help him arrange gifts for everyone he was going to leave behind. Puzzles to help them solve the problems and meaning of life. After his passing, Ollie’s mother is having trouble getting out of bed. His aunt Nessa, grandma Ingram, and grandpa Gerald are also having trouble with his death. Desperate to resolve everything and find closure, he tries to solve the puzzles his dad left them. Will he succeed? This book accurately depicts autism and does a great job of bringing the characters to life. The novel drags a bit in places, but is overall a good story. Readers interested in autism or dealing with grief may enjoy reading this book. 4 stars, Grades 5 to 7

In This Shining Life by Harriet Kline, we meet Ollie an eleven-year-old who has autism. Ollie’s father had cancer and before he died, he helped Ollie with specific gifts for each person in his family that will help Ollie. But of course, things go wrong and the gifts do not get to the intended recipient. This is distressing for Ollie, as it would be for anyone but especially this boy.

Ollie needs to work out this problem and figure out which object goes to each person. Within this quest might be the answer to the question, “what is the meaning of life?”

Here’s the synopsis:

Meet Ollie. He’s eleven years old. He hasn’t yet met a Killer Sudoku he can’t solve, but he finds the world around him difficult. People don’t say what they mean, and he hates being wrong. And now, a sudden tragedy teaches him there is no easy answer to the problem of grief.

When Ollie’s happy-go-lucky father, Rich, dies of brain cancer, his mother, Ruth, has no idea how to keep living, and the entire family is thrown into disarray. The only thing that makes sense to Ollie is the puzzle he’s convinced his father left behind: one gift for each member of the family. If Ollie can find the connection between a pink vase and an old pair of binoculars, then somehow he’ll discover the secret he believes Rich wanted to share with them all: what it means to be alive.

Interweaving the voices of each character in turn, this deeply felt novel paints a portrait of a family learning to come together through the darkest times, and it is a poignant yet ultimately uplifting meditation on grief, healing, and love.

This book was sad and a little depressing at times! Still, well written and worth your time to read.

Out on July 1.

You need to be prepared for this book; it's very depressing and often hard to read. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset to read it because it has gotten rave reviews so take this with a grain of salt (I had to have a margarita)! Ollie is eleven and autistic when his father dies unexpectedly from a brain tumor. His family is devastated but Ollie can't make any sense of it until he believes his father left him a puzzle with gifts for everyone; he's convinced if he solves the puzzle he will understand "what it feels to be alive." Told from alternating perspectives, we see a family struggling to heal but the focus is on Ollie who is in his own little world; one of his family members calls him "defective." You'd think living with an autistic child, you'd learn ways to help him cope. But there is some closure at the end and we see how this life could be "shining." It is an impressive debut and I will read more of Kline's work as it's clear she's talented.

So, know in advance that this one is sad. Touching sad. The novel is centered around a family coming to terms with a death. It is in parts and each part has a different perspective/focus.
In part one, we have Rich's story before he passes away, and much from Ollie, who is autistic, and is trying the best he can to understand what is happening in his family. A little mystery ensues as we are left with many questions headed into the next sections.
Part two we focus on the grieving and trying to decipher the meaning behind the objects left behind by Rich by each family member. They each get the wrong gifts, due to a mixup, and we are taken on their journeys of exploring how they piece it all together. This part was a little long/slow for me, but still enjoyable to watch it unfold.
Finally, we focus on Ollie and his wanting to give the perfect gift for each family member and his personalized quest for the elusive meaning of life and what it all means.
I loved this book. It was hard at times, it brought up "stuff" for me with family, death and struggling to make sense of things beyond my control. It left me sad, but full in my heart.
Thankful for the ARC on this one!

This Shining Life is the story of Rich, who dies from an inoperable brain tumor. His son Ollie, who is autistic, is trying to make sense of this. The story is told from each characters perspective, including his wife, his mother-in-law, his sister-in-law and his parents. The time line includes the time of the diagnosis, the weeks that follow until Rich's death and the months after. Before he died, Rich had selected specific gifts for the people in his life. Gifts that he hoped would have meaning to them. He wanted them delivered upon his death. Somehow, the gifts were mislabeled and they went to different people rather than the ones he intended. Ollie believes that these gifts are a puzzle that he needs to solve to answer the question "what is the meaning of life"? Rich's wife Ruth, struggles with depression and has great difficulty dealing with his death as well as Ollie. The characters are all very interesting individuals who bring much to the story line. This was a sad but interesting book however, the topic could be unsettling to someone dealing with cancer . Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This story begins with Ollie telling the story, from his perspective, the perspective of a young boy with autism, whose father, Rich, has just died. Before, though, his father had Ollie help him arrange gifts for those he knew he would be leaving behind. He knew that his brain tumor was incurable. He is trying to bring comfort, a token of remembrance, of him and his love for them all. These gifts, he told Ollie, would help him solve the puzzle of what it means to be alive. He gives Ollie a pair of binoculars that ’smell of old books’ unread ’for a very long time.’

It isn’t long before Ollie realizes that everything has gone awry, the packages have ended up with the wrong people, and he is desperate to correct this. If he can’t, he will never know what it really means to be alive. Ollie begins to unravel, desperate to restore each gift to the person they were meant for, that is the only way for him to know what it means to be alive.

The cast of characters in this story include his grieving mother, Ruth, who is struggling to get out of bed and watch over Ollie. Nessa, his aunt and Ruth’s sister and their mother Angran. Gerald, his father’s father, and Marjorie, his father’s mother. But this story belongs most of all to Ollie, who has a desperate need to restore everything to the way it was supposed to be, and to solve the puzzle. He doesn’t ever want to cry about his father’s death, he is completely focused on figuring out the right answers in order to solve the puzzle his father left him. The frustration and obsession take their toll on him, but no one is listening to what he is really saying. He needs to fix the package mix-up in order to solve it and make everything right again.

I struggled through the first half of this and set it aside despite it being a relatively quick read. Time-wise, I could have easily finished this 336 page book in one sitting if I’d been engaged, but I wasn’t. Ollie’s so obsessed, naturally, over the same thing, it gets a bit repetitive in nature, but the second half it did pick up a bit more.

A story about love and loss, families, and the pain and sorrow that accompanies losing a loved one. Perhaps most of all, listening beyond words.


Pub Date: 22 Jun 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House / Dial Press Trade Paperback

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Storygraph!

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
WOW!! Never have a read a story with such richly drawn real characters. This is the story of a man named Rich who is died of an inoperable brain tumor. But its not about death, it about life and love and the flawed wonderful people who make life worth living. His son Ollie, a bright boy on the autism spectrum, who is trying to make sense of it all. Rich promised to tell him what it means to be alive, but didn’t get to, and now he is on a quest to figure it out.

Rich’s wife, Ruth who has struggled with depression came to rely on his strength to make everything all right. Her sister Nessa, who was his friend first and has to put aside her own grief to pull her sister from the abyss.

I especially want to call out how beautifully the author portrayed the parents- Rich’s father Gerald, mid way into dementia. His mudded thoughts and the agony that comes from losing your son while losing yourself. Marjorie losing her son and husband at the same time.
And finally Ruth and Nessa’s mother Angram who ALWAYS says and does the wrong thing. She loves them so fiercely that she cannot express it. She raised them as a single mom, and is the very definition of “love blocked” ( parents who’s river of love is there but blocked by the debris of life and is unable to flow to child).
All of these characters have a lot to learn and together figure out what it means to be alive.

This Shining Life by Harriet Kline will surely strike a chord with anyone who is struggling to process, and make sense of, a devastating loss. While I can fully appreciate what the author is trying to achieve through Ollie's journey, the narrative just did not capture me in any truly meaningful way.

Ollie is a young boy who loses his easygoing father Rich to a brain tumour. The emotions that come are all-encompassing and overwhelming, but Ollie believes that his father has left behind a puzzle that, when solved, will help him to make sense of it all, and reveal the very meaning of life.

Told from the alternating viewpoints of the family members, it is Ollie's story that resonates most strongly, and the reader is taken through an emotional journey that, ultimately, has no satisfactory resolution. Admittedly, the author does an admirable job of fleshing out the concept of loss, but I found that the story was not able to sustain my interest for the duration. 3.5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for an ARC.

In reading other reviews, I notice the triggers that inhibit full appreciation of a beautifully written novel. The experiences of death and grieving, of being and caring for a child who thinks and reasons differently can be overwhelming and put off the reader - hopefully to a later time when there is empathy to spare. That said, This Shining Life is written from a number of points of view within a family without being confusing. Eleven year old Ollie is the "Flavia de Luce' who holds it all together and with whom we may find relief from the sadness and unfortunate behavior of others. I reference Flavia because this is among other things a mystery which is eventually and satisfyingly solved.

There are several issues at the core of this story with death being the overriding one that affects the others. Ollie is a boy probably on the autistic spectrum, whose dad dies at the beginning of the book. He feels his dad has left him a puzzle that will help him figure out what life is all about, though no one else sees it that way. His mom, his aunt, his grandparents all have different ideas on how to deal with him and of course their ideas clash with each other and with Ollie's needs.
At times overly depressing to me, it seemed to bring out the family dysfunctions even more when death was added to it. At times I wanted to step in and stop what I felt was making it worse for Ollie. Having a family member on the spectrum might have influenced me for sure!
I really don't think the title was the best choice for this book, but otherwise I was glad I read it. Thank you NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

A beautifully written meditation on the meaning of life, and a deep dive exploration to the effects of trauma on a family. While I loved the idea of the story and the writing style, the structure of the book read a little unevenly for me, personally.

Part One includes Rich's story and perspective and is quite magical. The reader also experiences Ollie's future tense perspective on the events of the story, one which is full of holes. This is a great metaphorical way to both get inside the brain of someone with Autism (who struggles to make connections that occur naturally for the rest of the family) and to place questions in the reader's mind that will thankfully be answered later in the book (although rarely to Ollie's satisfaction.)

Part Two is more of an exploration of grief and the story of these various objects Rich has bequeathed to various family members. Due to a mixup, everyone gets the wrong gift. But the story explores how they undertake the mental gymnastics of finding ways to make this the RIGHT gift and find meaning and purpose in them. This section is a bit slower...and a bit lacking from the loss of Rich's perspective (but perhaps that's a metaphor?)

Part Three was, for me, the weakest section. It's about Ollie's quest to get everyone the right gift and a dramatic escalation of the tensions and plot that has been carefully laid the entire book in the service of answering Ollie's big question: "what is the meaning of life?" It felt like it was trying very hard to tie up loose ends, which felt ironic when the ultimate conclusion was that sometimes life doesn't give you all the answers.

Like I said, the three sections didn't always create an even ride for me personally. However the characters are all well rendered and the idea behind the story is a beautiful one. Often we are shown the same scene from a different character's perspective, which adds layers of richness. In a way, the writing style very much mimics the storytelling within families themselves--everyone seeing things from the vantage point in which they are decidedly the hero.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is one sad chapter after the next. Rich is dying and this is the story of how his young, seemingly autistic son, and the rest of his family process his passing. I gave the book two stars because I do enjoy books like this one that focus each chapter on how each character is dealing with the subject matter. After 50%, though, I couldn't deal with the grief anymore, and had to put the book down.

Thank you, NetGalley for allowing to give this story a try.

I wanted to say I didn’t like this book. I just wanted to jump in and slap Ruth, Angran and Nessa. Especially Angran. Butit’s a well written book and I really liked the other characters and how the story was told. The author does a good job of tieing the whole story together with the epilog.

Seriously, Ms. Kline has expertly told a story of a sad situation with flawed people who come to life on the page for all of us to experience.

This is a despicable book, full of the kind of thinking that leads parents and other caregivers to kill their autistic children and themselves. I read this on the International Disability Day of Mourning, and couldn't help but to connect the story of Ruth and her autistic son Ollie with the horrific crimes committed every year against autistic people. Ruth continually expresses her despair at having and her inability to "cope" with Ollie, and by pleading with her son and with the universe in general for her child to be normal and not "overreact" to her husband positions herself in the category of people who think that perhaps death is better than being autistic, and that death might be preferable to "having to care" for an autistic person.

The book also stigmatizes mental illness, suggesting that people should just get up and get on with their everyday lives. This willpower method of addressing depression is a dangerous one. Depression is an illness and needs proper treatment, not "tough love" or the badgering of other people. Not once in the book does anyone suggest that Ruth, her sister, and their mother could or should seek out professional care for their depression.

Finally, there's nothing to suggest that author Kline spoke with autistic people or had autistic readers for this book. Her depiction of Ollie, an autistic child, relies on tired and inappropriate tropes. Her writing suggests that he is pitiable and sad and incompetent at communication and basic functioning. His own father--the saintly, perfect Rich, who is a problematic character in his own right--writes him a letter telling Ollie that he will grow up to be a "strange man." How awful to tell your child that they will be subject to such a label. I am autistic, and I am really glad I didn't grow up in Ollie's family.

I'd like to give this zero stars.

Genre” General Fiction/Literary Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Pub. Date: June 22, 2021

This character-driven novel is a sweet yet sad story that revolves around Rich who is a husband, father, brother, and son. Rich will die in the novel. We know this from chapter one. The book takes you through his prognosis until his death and his family’s grief afterward. The author’s descriptive writing will bring you into the inner thoughts and feelings on how Rich, as well as his family members, digest his upcoming death.

Most of the characters have quirky yet lovable personalities including Rich’s 11-year-old son, Ollie, who is autistic. Although, Ollie is very hard to live with his parents adore him. Rich is the best with him when dealing with his rituals. Can you imagine being a parent of a child who will not leave the house without all his socks in case his feet get wet? Yet, he is such a tender and frequently confused soul that it is hard not to like him. The author never actually states that Ollie is autistic but it becomes obvious through his words, actions, and rituals. Rich wants to reprimand his parents that it is not Ollie’s fault that their grandson can appear to be disrespectful. He is not. It is just that his brain is wired differently. Unfortunately, when he finally gets the courage to confront his stern and ridged father it is too late. Rich is already gone. The message is obvious.

There is much more in this touching family drama than Rich’s premature death. The author takes on many themes, living with a disability, adult unresolved painful childhood memories, chronic depression, the stages of grief with an inside look at the mindset of a dying man. Sometimes I thought the author went too heavy on the characters’ exhausting emotions. It became tedious to read. But then again, maybe that was Kline’s point—to put the reader up close and personal to death. However, for me, sweet Ollie is what grabbed my interest and held it throughout the novel. Without being preachy, the author gives a lesson in patience, understanding, and the meaning of true acceptance.

A really beautiful glimpse into a family that has to deal with a death. Each family member goes through it differently and those stories are detailed enough to make us care. Poor Ollie just breaks my heart. How cruel autism can be. How hard it is to communicate your feelings. I like the idea of everyone getting a gift from a dying person even though it didn’t work out how he planned it was still sweet to see how each person felt about the initial choice.

The story begins as Rich, a happy-go-lucky teacher, starts to feel unwell. He is ultimately diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour and given a short time to live. The narrative uses multiple points of view as each member of Rich’s family copes with his diagnosis and death. The timeline also jumps from the weeks before his diagnosis, the weeks between diagnosis and death, and the weeks following his death.

Many members of Rich’s family are dealing with their own mental health issues and the story highlights the effect of grief on family dynamics as well on pre-existing mental health concerns. Young son, Ollie, is perhaps on the spectrum; wife, Ruth, struggles with coping day to day; MIL, Angran, has a complex history of depression; and father, Gerald, is battling dementia. Rich’s sister in law, Nessa, and mother, Marjorie, struggle to keep everyone going. In the weeks before his death Rich sets out to leave each member of his family an important gift. He tells Ollie this is the answer to the meaning of life. Literal-minded Ollie takes this at face value and sees the gifts as clues to a puzzle he must solve in order to understand what it means to be alive. He sets out to solve this puzzle but continually encounters barriers in the form of family members struggling with their own issues. His mother retreats to her bed; his fiercely protective grandmother struggles with how to show her love she as attempts to overcome the damage her unacknowledged depression caused her relationship with her daughters; his other grandparents attempt to reconcile the loss of their son while coping with Gerald’s decline into dementia. Ollie’s attempts to solve the puzzle are further thwarted when he realizes that each member of the family has received the wrong gift. No wonder no one can tell him the special meaning of their gift- it was not intended for them!

Ollie decides to solve the puzzle once and for all and invites all the family to a party on what would have been Rich’s 49th birthday. His aim is to redistribute the gifts and have each family member in turn announce the meaning behind their gift. On the night of the party nothing goes right, but the family finds themselves brought closer together as Ollie understands that there is no carefully constructed puzzle he can solve to understand the meaning of life.

This is a heartfelt novel containing relatable characters who face a major loss. The author shows how relationships riddled with difficulties stemming from past grievances are further complicated by grief.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.