So I’m currently reading Descending Twilight. I’ve had this book for 16 years, a memento from the last family vacation before my sister passed away. It’s a self-published novel that was sold in the campground resort gift shop, written by a staff member of the resort we used to go to. I remember buying it, and the cashier told me I should go have him sign it at the welcome center guard booth. He was so grateful, he even signed it with a really beautiful message.
Despite keeping this book with me through numerous moves and all of life’s rollercoaster, I only ever read the first chapter of it before. Well, until this week.
I was looking up the author right before I read it this month. I discovered that he passed away in October of this year. His viewing was actually on my birthday, which is ironic. But there are no reviews of his book anywhere online! Not Amazon. Not Goodreads. Nothing. I keep thinking he died thinking no one ever read it. So I’m going to write him a new review, just so his family can go there and see that his book did make a difference.
It’s not exactly a literary masterpiece though. To be frank, the book itself is… hilariously bad. Clunky dialogue that just monologues for pages, facts about a career field I’m actually in that he did NOT research at all (saying that a psychologist can’t be a therapist and therefore lied about their credentials because they’re not a psychiatrist, like what?), writing the same thing in the narration that he just wrote in the dialogue. It’s like The Room of books, Oh hi Mark! lol… mixed with some Da Vinci Code.
It’s got a lot of heart though, stuffed in all 417 pages of it and it’s a really fast read for all it’s poor writing and a sweet message. And I’m just kind of upset with myself for not reading it sooner and not writing him a review. I almost feel like he wrote the thing just for me, since no one else seems to have read it. Reading it now is an odd experience, but despite its flaws, it’s been a quick and strangely touching read. Just making me feel a little guilty, but nostalgic, but yeah… guilty…
by SpringtimeMoonlight