I have long admired Charles Bock's writing, and I have been excited about this book since I first read an excerpt in The New Yorker last year. The book is a devastating but also hopeful and at times very funny close look at parenting and grief and mourning. After reading Bock's novels, it's wonderful to read his creative non-fiction.

Charles Bock writes well somehow I feel like I’ve read most of the narrative before years ago not sure why. I liked it when I first read it or read about some
of it written by a past significant other. stars based on original story. I remember liking his first book as well.

Charles Bock's "I Will Do Better: A Father's Memoir of Heartbreak, Parenting, and Love" tells an honest, engaging story about life after Bock's wife Diana passed away from a complex form of leukemia when their daughter, Lily, was a mere three-years-old.

A New York Times bestselling author, Bock writes with refreshing honesty about his reluctance as a parent. He was obsessed with his career, a happily married man tagging along for the ride of fatherhood but in many ways still a man-boy himself. Diana was diagnosed with leukemia when Lily was only six months old and over the next two plus years she would do everything she could to spend as much time with her daughter as possible.

"I Will Do Better" is no miracle story. Instead, it's the story of an exhausted widower in many ways ill-prepared for being a single parent who was left with his grief, drowning in medical bills, and having to heal himself and his young daughter.

He failed a lot. Until the two of them started figuring it out amidst playdates, music classes, temper tantrums, babysitters, and even a natural disaster. Bock shares vividly his experiences with a therapist who helped him and his child, however, most of what we see in "I Will Do Better" is a family learning how to be a family.

The story begins ten years ago - it's as if Bock had to wait to write it to make sure they really, really, really made it. They're still making it. Occasionally quite funny and other times filled with sadness and anger and unknowing, "I Will Do Better" shares a beautiful journey of two people and the family they became as they learned how to love one another.

I was immediately drawn into this one! The writing is excellent and the story heartbreaking but hopeful. I learned a lot about grief, parenting, and how to navigate life after a spouse dies. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Five stars.