#BookReview: Hello from the Gillespies by Monica McInerney

Reviewer: Terry

hello from the gillespiesI received a review copy

I don’t know what I was expecting when I read this book….but a book with such depth and full of amazing lessons was not it. I am delighted to say that this book surprised me, touched me and truly made me think.

Hello from the Gillespies starts out with a housewife-Angela, preparing to write her annual Christmas letter…you know that letter mom’s write to fill you in on the family news. The one that always leaves out the dirty details of how the year really went, this time Angela decides to write an honest letter…a painfully, dirty detailed, open book honest letter, and she tells it all. Of course she wasn’t writing it to send it out, only for therapy, but by accident the letter goes out and this is where the story begins.

As a mom, we are supposed to pretend that everything our children does is ok with us, that we are all excepting and understanding, and that they can do no fault. Of course we are always supposed to like our children and never speak unkind when they act like they have no brain. That’s what we are taught…Angela does just this, bottling it up and absorbing it all, for the sake of peace and harmony. But what happens when we share our honest thoughts with the people we love the most in our lives? This story shows just what is possible and what can happen.

I am so deeply in love with the point of this story and the brutal honesty of it. I cannot share enough how much it helped me personally to read it. There is one particular piece that called out to me more than anything I have read recently.

The story continues and shows how this family grows from the truths that they all were hiding. I believe that is a lesson in life. With truth comes growth. It’s hard to be the mom, harder still when you become the mom of grown children. This book portrays that and so much more and I truly enjoyed reading it.

5 stars

1 Comment

  1. November 14, 2014 / 4:46 pm

    I have this on my kindle fire but haven’t read it yet. Thank you for the great review of it. I can’t wait to read it for sure now.