Book Review – Take Care, Sara by Lindy Zart

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How do you continue living when the person you love most in the world is forever torn out of your life?

“It happened on a warm summer night when my heart was ripped apart and flung in a million unrecoverable directions.”

Ever since suffering the devastating loss of her husband, Sara has been surrounded by crushing, suffocating, constant pain. They were so deeply in love, their lives so entwined that a life without him just doesn’t seem worth living. Everything reminds her of him, she remembers him constantly, aches for him, cannot bear to live without him and has reached a point where she no longer wants to.

“She felt his warmth like he was behind her, holding her. Only it wasn’t him. It would never be him…. She was dying on the inside, losing herself… Sara didn’t know how to make it stop. She longed for it to stop.”

Only a few pages in and I was already near tears. This poor woman had had everything she loved in life torn away from her and she existed in this state of… nothingness. Still alive; the only one left. Left with memories that haunted her everywhere she went. She remembered his smell, the twinkle in this eyes, the sound of his voice… it just broke my heart. I truly *felt* her pain.

“That’s what she remembered, what she relived, every single day.
Him.
In fine detail.
Dying.”

One of the things that I find usually happens with post-loss or post-accident books is that I find that often, because I didn’t personally *know* the character who had died, I find it harder to *feel* their loss because… I didn’t know them as a reader and therefore it’s like I don’t know what I’m missing. But this book made me feel his loss and Sara’s pain right from the beginning. Heck for the first while, I didn’t even know his name and I still missed him.

“There was a void, a hole within her only he could fill. She felt like half a person; bereft, lost.”

The author portray’s Sara’s grief in a very vivid way by describing the little things – a favorite chair that no longer smells like him, an empty sink that used to be full of dirty dishes… these details really connect you with the loss and put you ‘in’ the scene. I honestly read many scenes in the book with tears in my eyes.

But the people in her life care deeply about her and there’s a point where they can’t bear to see her go through the pain any more.

Her husband’s best friend brings along a grief councilor who connects deeply with her having gone through a similar tragedy himself. He knew what it was like to suffer that kind of loss, go through those emotions… and he also knew how to come out the other side.

Her husband’s brother was also there for her. Having been very close to his brother, he understood her pain on a very personal level and yet was determined to help pull her out of her downward spiral and help them both learn to live again while still honoring the memory of the man they’d both lost.

“You’re not alone. Don’t ever feel like you’re alone. You know that, right?”
“You don’t have to feel bad for living, Sarah…. We’re going to laugh and smile. We’re going to live. Understand? This is what Cole would want. He would freak if he saw the way you’re living now. You know it too. This is stopping. Now. You can get mad at me and you can try and push me away, but guess what? I’m not going anywhere.”

He was so incredibly caring for her. Deeply understanding, patient and respectful of her pain and yet equally determined to help her live again.

“You didn’t die. You’re not dying. You don’t get to die, Sara.” he ground out. “Start living.”

I honestly can say that in the first 25% of the book, I honestly wasn’t sure what the ending would be — there were three possible outcomes at that point and I had no idea which road the book would take.

As far as the romance went… this was not a book that was just about immediately moving on and I have to say I really loved that about it. There was nothing about trying to replace or even move forward from her husband for a long time and when something did happen, it was so slow and natural that it never felt disrespectful or rushed.

“Who was saving whom? Maybe they were saving each other.”

I’d almost say that there were points in the story where I wished it would move forward a little faster… there was just so. much. pain. So much heart ache. But I think at the same time that it was because of this pacing that everything felt as natural as it did… And also, the more the book moved on, the more hidden feeling came out. Hidden feelings that actually made the place she was able to move on to okay. I really felt like it wasn’t a betrayal or a replacement but just that everything had it’s time. Tragic though it was. But there just is a point where everyone’s suffering has to stop.

I did find her suffering realistic though. Thank heavens I’ve never suffered a loss like hers but I *know* without a shadow of a doubt that if something happened to my husband, I’d be the same. No question. The author did a beautiful job of portraying Sara’s journey. It was heart wrenching and believable. I *felt* it.

“Love was forever, love was not lost when a life was; love did not fall away or weaken a person. Love was strong and people were stronger because of it; love continued, in all forms, in every way, until the end of time and even after that.”

Take Care, Sara was deeply emotional, painfully beautiful and in the end uplifting. It was about finding the strength to move on even while still holding onto and never forgetting a love so powerful that even in death it would not let go.

4.5 stars

• Buy TAKE CARE, SARA (Kindle) 
• Buy TAKE CARE, SARA (Paperback)

Casting

• I don’t want to say the names because I don’t want to spoil anything but I feel like this casting image fits the feeling of the story.