Moving Touching
Rating:
5 / 5
This story is just a good read, and such a testimony of a young man struck with lucemia, his spirit his valor...emotions are stired to beyond words.
Sappily sentimental. Bored me to tears.
Rating:
1 / 5
I hate to be the skunk in the five-star garden party, but I remember reading, or rather trying to read, this book when in high school some *cough* 20 years ago. I could barely get through it. Apparently I wasn't alone, because someone else had graffitoed on the (soft) cover, "This book sucks. Don't read it."Sometimes I think there should be a moratorium on grieving parents writing about their dead offspring. Aside from one brief moment when Lund catches her son checking out girls in a hospital corridor or waiting room, I don't remember a single aspect of Eric's personality aside from "Mama's Little Angel." And although my memory is vague on this, I seem to recall the book contains a fair amount of delusional mumbo-jumbo about "God's will" ('scuse me while I barf). If you want to read a superb book by someone who lost a child to cancer, read "Death Be Not Proud" by John Gunther. That book preserves every quirk of his late son Johnny's wry sense of humor and considerable intellect, and actually makes you regret that the son didn't live to take up the father's pen. Not only that, but Gunther deals with hard questions of mortality and loss without resorting to the kind of sticky sentimentality you'd expect from Oprah or the "women's channels" on cable TV. Cripes, even Marie Killilea's books about her handicapped (no, NOT "differently abled") daughter Karen are better than Lund's book. The entire genre, for obvious reasons, is for the most part manipulatively mawkish, but that's what sells, I guess. If you have an "I Believe in Angels" bumper sticker on your car, Thomas Kincaide "paintings" on your walls, and every CD Whitney Houston ever recorded in your music collection, go ahead and order "Eric." You'll cry your eyes out and write a five-star review.
This book saved my daughters life!
Rating:
5 / 5
I read this book as a teenager when it was first published - back in the mid 1970's. The story of Eric's struggle with leukemia moved me deeply. Little did I know that 20-some years later, grown with a family of my own, that my own teenage daughter would be diagnosed with the same disease. Had I not read it and learned the signs and symptoms of leukemia, I may not have known to get my daughter to the doctor as soon as I did. I'm happy to say that it has been 2 1/2 years since my daughter finished up a long course of chemotherapy and is doing well! If she stays cancer free another 2 1/2 years the doctors will call her 'cured'. A heartfelt THANK YOU to Doris Lund for sharing her touching story with us. No words can express my gratitude. If anyone knows how I can contact Ms. Lund, please email me - I would love to let her know how instrumental she was in my daughters diagnosis and survival.
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