*Snif* It was a sad book...

[Trialia]

I think the book was well titled, but Rick, I disagree a bit with what you're saying...

I lost my mother to cancer as a teenager, just like Nita, but unlike Nita, my mama had been fighting lymphoma for 14 years. In the few months after losing a parent to whom you're especially close, one may feel angry and ready to fight, but it's also a more vulnerable time than most people would like to admit.

[rick455]

I think I understand how Nita and the Callahan's might feel. You watch someone you love die, and it doesn't take that long, believe me. My mother and grandmother died of pneumonia. It only took a week. It happened in 1979 so I eventually got over it. I understand the depression afterwards, it seems to go on forever. If I was going to do Nita harm during that. I would think twice, she's at her most dangerous. That goes double for Daraine.

[willowtree]

I like this book because it really relates to life. My grandfather died from cancer when I was a baby, so I didn't really get to know him. My great-grandfather died from cancer, and my great-aunt just recently passed away from cancer, so I am very sad . My aunt is also diagnosed with cancer, and now undergoing surgery. I am actually kinda glad their mom went to Timeheart, because that way a lot of people can relate with Nita. It begins a great opening for AWH, and her depression really helps the story get along and everyone feels her pain as if it were fer own. I love this book!!

[chocolate101]

Wizard's Dilemna

I really love this book but it is so sad! I wish she could have changed it a little bit at some parts! But as a whole this is one of the greatest books she wrote so far!

[Stormwind]

The first time I read WD, I paused to think how I would have helped if I was old enough to have understood when my Grandmother was diagnosed with Colon Cancer... I mean I was 9 but I wasn't even really knowing what Cancer was, and when she passed away... I felt robbed. She wouldn't be there to see me graduate High School, get married, none of it. So I knew how Nita felt in a way.
I just lost my last grandparent 2 November's ago. 18 years after the other three had died (including her husband that died only two weeks to their 50th wedding anniversary). Every time I reread WD, I think of all them, and who I've become knowing that they are all in Timeheart waiting for those of us yet to come (Before anyone says anything, yes I mean Heaven)
I think it's time for a reread..
Thanks DD, this was a heart wrenching story, but oh so true to life....

[illiriam]

Yes this book was a very sad one, especially for me. It's one I could relate to, and that I made a connection with, and that makes anything the author describes come across much more vividly. When I was 7 my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and she did not make it. So reading this book, and it not having a happily ever after where Nita's mom makes a miraculous recovery, had a very strong impact on me, and I definitely cried the first time I read it, and every time thereafter. She does her best to describe that which you can't describe to anyone who hasn't felt the despair and the loss, and you can't even try because they give you that look, like you're going to run screaming from the room tearing your hair out, as soon as you get started. She really related the book, so I felt that even if you hadn't experienced the death of a parent, you could sympathize even if you couldn't empathize.
Few other writers can relate the experience in novels or tv or movies as well as DD did, and the only one that instantly comes to mind isn't a book, but an episode of Buffy, Season 5's "The Body" where Buffy comes home to find her mother dead on the couch from an aneurysm.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by Gatemage Stardragon:
Personally, I think Nita should do something on the side to help herself deal with what happened, I've been writing poetry, and I'm getting a book of poems published, so somehting as simple as writing would give a sign that Nita is doing something to help herself

Well, she helped Darryl with his ordeal.

Then she (a) had a holiday (b) sorted out the population of the planet Alaalu.

And she had a couple of things to do with the outcome of WAW, too.

I'm not sure she's got time for a hobby-type activity, with all of the wizardry she has to do.

Mind you, Dairine doesn't seem to be quite as busy. WAW, yes, but she wasn't very active in AWAl. Her guests kept her busy in WH, though.

[kk]

It was the saddest book i have ever read. (and i have read some SADDDDDDDDD BOOKS!!)

I cry when I read it. but in its way, the end is beautiful.

[Mel]

Also, she did slave over that bracelet a lot, and I think it prolly helped a bit. And 'scuse the one-liner. *tips had to DD, Poot*

[Dragon Writer]

I think she DID help herself, in some small way, by helping others....i know it sounds weird but sometimes curing the pain of others goes a long way towards releaving yourself of your own built up pain...

[Gatemage Stardragon]

thanks for those sympathies, and I'm glad to hear that your mother improved from her condition.

Personally, I think Nita should do something on the side to help herself deal with what happened, I've been writing poetry, and I'm getting a book of poems published, so somehting as simple as writing would give a sign that Nita is doing something to help herself

[Dee]

This book was the last book by DD that I read, I read it even after W@W came out. I started it a few years ago, but I got to the part where they discovered that Nita's mom had cancer and I just stopped and couldn't keep going. When I bought that book, my mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer a few days before, and I didn't even know Nita's mother got cancer in book 5. I closed it and stopped reading it instantly when the word cancer registered. I just put it in the bookshelf with mom's cancer books and decided I'd read it when my brain wouldn't explode from sadness.

So last year, we were moving some of her cancer and alternative medicine books because the cancer was in remission and I saw that book and stopped in my tracks, sat down for a few hours and read it all the way through without stopping. I didn't cry when I read it, I just read every word, unfeeling like a zombie or a computer. It was that night when I got no sleep, crying quietly out of happiness for my mother and sadness for Nita.
I can't say I knew how Nita felt, because my mom is fine now. But I definitely didn't like imagining being in Nita's place. Gatemage, you have all my sincere sympathies.

I think DD did a beautiful job of showing what it feels like to have someone close to you have cancer. Like Gatemage, the Nita/Dairine scene touched me, but on the other side. I'm the younger sibling. It made me think what it must have felt like for my older brother, trying to be strong for me.

All in all, a very touching book.

[Winking_Moon]

Originally posted by young reader:
It really was sad...but it also had to be my favorite...cause as sad as it al was, it was also REALLY powerful...if that makes any sense at all...*hopes people say yes, other wise i'm going to feel kind of stupid*

I totally understand. I think it is one of her most powerful books ever. some of the things that make it powerful are the sad parts.

[Olivia]

Yeah, Kevin? Note the SOMEWHAT. Besides, remember this?

Originally posted by young reader:
if that makes any sense at all...*hopes people say yes, other wise i'm going to feel kind of stupid*

Yeah, so I did what you said. And you were upset about it. Last time I'm obeying you...
By the way, I don't care if I cry for books at awkward times. No one pays any attention to me anyway.

[Dragon Writer]

REALLY? drat...i'm not SUPPOSED to make sense...i mean, me making sense is like...olivia hating sunkist...:P i've said that elsewhere, before...and i didn't really cry, truth to tell....but that doesn't mean it didn't hit me just as hard...i used to cry easily and had to build up a resistance against that because it sometimes happened ar really awkward times...So yeah, that's why...