Decent work by an established voice in literature. The backwards chronological structure is a beautiful way to take inventory of a life.

This was a beautiful, moving portrait of the author's mother, who faced tragedy and depression and dementia, but who was deeply loved by her daughters. The story is told in searingly simple language. I found the structure itself to be poignant. It starts with the mother's death, and goes backward in time, through the mother's life. The structure of the book brings the mother back to life, and it feels like the author's way of moving through her grief.

Shared on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7578849342

This book offers a moving and honest portrait of the author’s mother, capturing both the grace of her final years and the full complexity of her life. With clear-eyed sensitivity, the author explores a woman who was at once unflinchingly honest and deeply compassionate. Rather than idealizing or simplifying her, the writing embraces her contradictions, resulting in a tribute that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant.

I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. The first part of the book focuses on the last days of the author’s mom Iris’s death. It hit me personally as my own mother struggles with dementia and it is heartbreaking. In a way, I wanted to hurry through this part to get to a happier time in her mother’s life. I didn’t like all of the references the author threw into this section regarding studies on dementia and such. It got too “textbook like” and didn’t flow well as I tried to get a feel for Jill’s situation and grief. Unfortunately, the rest of the story didn’t read smoothly for me due to other reasons. I would have preferred to have heard more vignettes about events in Iris’s life rather than bits and pieces. I thought I would enjoy reading a story like this told backwards from the end of Iris’s life to the beginning. It could be interesting and unique. However, because of how it was laid out I found it to be a bit all over the place. It didn’t allow for me to really get a better sense for who Iris truly was as a person (though what I did get was that she didn’t lead an easy life, particularly in her adult years) and even only made me feel a glimmer of what Jill’s relationship with her was like.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

A beautifully told story of the author’s mother but in reverse. We begin at her mother’s death. In the midst of COVID quarantines, which means the author cannot even attend her mother’s funeral.
I really enjoyed the way this book was written. The beauty of the prose, and her ability to make you feel again what we felt in the beginning of the pandemic. It’s a route from despair to hope. From the end….back to her mother’s childhood.
This is definitely a gorgeous read.
I received a ARC of this book, all opinions are my own.

This was so moving and originial. I have never read anything like this stylistically and the prose knocked me off my feet. What a beautiful tribute and a moving story.

One narrative that will explain it all because we always need a story, an account, to make sense of the inexplicable. from The End Is the Beginning by Jill Bialosky

My mother was fifty-seven years old when she died of cancer. I was thirty-eight. She had been diagnosed with cancer two weeks before her death. I had just moved back to my home state to be near family after our son was born.

During those two weeks, while Mom underwent chemotherapy and called all her friends and relatives to tell them the news, I kept up a face of competence during the day, and at night wrote poems to express my grief. Poems about diagnosis, her medical history, the impending loss of a mother, and finally, remembering stories she told me about her teenage years as the local ‘jitterbug queen’.

When I began reading Jill Bialosky’s memoir of her mother, beginning with her death and years with Alzheimer’s, I wondered if I could bear such tragedy. Bialosky told her mother’s story backwards, and frankly, there was tragedy after tragedy. Until she came to her mother’s teenage years, looking over her scrapbooks and diaries, discovering joy and fun and hope. And I realized the brilliance of storytelling backwards, ending with the promise each young life holds.

Unlike Bialosky’s mother, my mother didn’t lose a child, but she did lose two siblings. My mother didn’t lose a husband to death or divorce. But she did deal with deforming autoimmune diseases, psoriasis that made her embarrassed and psoriatic arthritis that left her crippled. She prayed for an early death rather than endure an old age unable to care for herself, especially for the psoriasis. Death came early, sadly after a new medication had stabilized her conditions and allowed her a more active life.

Bialosky’s memoir is beautiful and heart breaking. We each have a story of loss and grief, and there is something cathartic about reading another’s story.

The book title, she shares at the end, is from some of my favorite lines by T. S. Eliot in the Four Quartets, where he writes in East Coker :

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

And from Little Gidding, she adds the lines I once had on my bulletin board at my desk,

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all or exploring
WIll be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Mom told stories all my life. I loved looking at her old photographs and hearing about the people. I became a genealogist, researching newspapers and documents for facts and information about family. Understanding our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents helps us to understand them and ourselves. It is a circular exploration.

A beautiful book.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

The way Jill was able to pull on ALL my heart strings, man oh man. What a beautiful memoir. As someone who has lost her mother to a debilitating illness, this really hit home. Books like this make me feel less alone, if you know, you know.

The way she was able to describe such a raw, emotional experience is breathtaking. Tears will be shed but I promise your heart will thank you for reading it.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for allowing me access to this ARC in exchange for my review.

What I loved most about "The End is the Beginning" is how the author used small details and bits of dialogue to bring the significant moments of her mother's history to life. Although she presents the narrative in reverse order (from death to birth), each stage feels weighted with insight and tenderness. It caused me to wonder how my parents were forged, and what portions of my life I would choose to illustrate who I am today. Highly recommended, particularly to anyone with mother issues, this book helps. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. Pub Date: May 5, 2025.

#TheEndIsTheBeginning

Beautiful book.
Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

A beautiful and heartbreaking book with a very intriguing narrative structure and so vividly imagined. Would be great to use in a college class on memoir and nonfiction. A must read.