Book Review - Twelve Months

Twelve Months by Steven Manchester (The Story Plant - 2012) - I honestly had no idea what I was getting into when I opened this book.  When I realized it was the story of a man just my age facing the sudden end of his life long before he was prepared I almost put the book down.  My own stroke is less than two years in the past and is still a pain filled, fearful memory.  I know EXACTLY the feelings Don DiMarco goes through.  The stunning pain of realizing that you must leave those you love the most behind long before you want.  DiMarco is diagnosed with a cancer that is beyond curing.  He's given 12 months to live and has to decide how to live it.  The story is inspiring even as it's fairly predictable.  It's a love story and a story of self discovery.  It's a story that lives every second of the present while taking long rambles through the past.  It's a story about trying to do the things you've always wanted to do and wondering why you didn't do them before.

The book isn't without it's short comings.  Manchester fills far too many pages using out takes from newspaper stories and tourist brochures to move the story forward rather than sticking with his strength - the bond between his characters.  The worst moments in the book are when DiMarco lives out a life long goal of doing stand up comedy.  In all of his other "bucket list" events he does it once and moves on.  DiMarco not only gets up on stage THREE times, he is awful all three times and Manchester makes us live through all three of them.  It's painful reading, more painful than any of the emotional content elsewhere.  To be honest I'm not sure that it really adds to the story.

In the end Manchester weaves together a story well worth reading.  It's touching and emotional and was very hard for me to read at times.  I read the book during breaks at a convention and several times had people inquire if I was all right.  The story came too close to my own in several places.  The book won't be for everybody but for some it could easily be their favorite book of the year.

Twelve Months is set to hit book shelves August 14.

Rating - *** Good Read.