I am not able to give a positive review for this book at all and gave up half way through as did not connect at all to the main characters and actually really disliked both of them intensely. As someone who lives with an alcoholic and the disruption and chaos it causes for the family I am afraid I had little and no sympathy for the characters.

Louisa Young

An important book, one that demands we rethink a culture of blame around alcoholism … moving, harrowing and tirelessly empathetic’ Daily Express Perhaps I have an advantage point in my opinion having grown up not far from Wigan, and also with an alcoholic father. Yes - if another user has not requested a book, you can renew it 5 times for another three weeks each. Audio-visual items such as DVDs and Audio Books can also be kept beyond their due date for an additional charge. If you want to renew books or other items there are a number of ways to do this. Do I have to return items to the library I borrowed them from?If the story of their relationship is occasionally repetitive, that captures the nature of alcoholism and reflects Louisa’s outpouring of still-raw emotion.

Louisa Young - Wikipedia Louisa Young - Wikipedia

As a composer, he lent airs and grace to numerous films, television dramas and plays. His tragedy was that he knew his alcoholism had blighted what he could have achieved without it - but his achievements were remarkable none the less. Not the least inspiring the devoted love and care of a rather extraordinary woman as creative as him. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: The Ultimate Guide to Celebrating Christmas with the Best Drinks Books On The Shelves However, by now his lifestyle had taken a terrible toll on his health and the couple’s contentment proved to be short-lived.

We doubt our judgment. We don’t want them to be drinking; they say they’re not and we want to believe them — but of course they’re lying. Repeated contradictions make us think we’re going mad. We want, desperately, to help. We love them! But if we try to talk to them, we are a nag and a bore who’d drive anyone to drink. If we try to take alcohol away from them, they snap at us. Most of all, if we do help them, we are punished because to be honest we’re just making the whole thing last longer, and the next thing we know we are being called ‘co-dependent’, and ‘enabling’. And they’re still drinking. A Great Task of Happiness: The Life of Kathleen Scott (Macmillan, 1995); reissued by The Hydraulic Press, Lulu, 2012

You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol - Goodreads You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol - Goodreads

The relationship between her and Theo is well written, at times, tearjerking. The story is about Effie and Theo's lives and the way their closeness changes each other. She has contributed to various anthologies, including I Am Heathcliff (ed. Kate Mosse), Underground; Tales for London (ed. Ann Bissell) and A Love Letter to Europe (Coronet). But an essential read for those of us who know, have known or indeed will know an addict during the course of their life. Most touching was his love of bird watching. Utterly sad was his father's phobia against travel which meant he never saw his son's various extraordinary triumphs, such as being awarded a double first at Oxford or his piano recitals at Wigmore Hall. We all need our triumphs witnessed by those we love - or they don't feel completely real. Had me weeping into my pillow… Anyone who has ever loved an addict will recognise most of what she has to say’ iNewsPerhaps both that novel and this memoir represent me clinging desperately to something that protects me from my greatest feat – to whit, that if I allow myself to perceive what many other believe, that an alcoholic’s behaviour is entirely his/her own fault, and that when Robert repeatedly told me that I’d chosen the wrong man he was for once telling the truth, I will be swamped by an impossible toxic flood of emotion because he was in fact a bastard and I am, still, a fool. History Makers: Female Writers Dominate the 2023 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award Shortlist Beneath the surface lurk questions, such as: shouldn’t she have let him drop to the bottom? Did he really love her? And indeed, what is love?