I found this a heart wrenching story that has been beautifully crafted. The story had me from the get go and the characters were all too real and very believable. It is a poignant book about facing the death of a loved one that leaves you feeling emotional and raw. I sat for some time at several keys points of the story and contemplated the plight of the characters and compared it to my experience of the death of a loved one. The author draws you into the story so beautifully. I had not heard of Hilma Wolitzer before reading this book. I am eagerly looking forward to reading more. ( )

I found this a heart wrenching story that has been beautifully crafted. The story had me from the get go and the characters were all too real and very believable. It is a poignant book about facing the death of a loved one that leaves you feeling emotional and raw. I sat for some time at several keys points of the story and contemplated the plight of the characters and compared it to my experience of the death of a loved one. The author draws you into the story so beautifully. I had not heard of Hilma Wolitzer before reading this book. I am eagerly looking forward to reading more. ( )

"I picked up Ending by Hilma Wolitzer because An Available Man was one of my favorite reads of 2012. Ending is Wolitzer’s first novel, originally published in 1974. The edition I read is an ebook reissue, one of all of her novels reissued by Open Road Integrated Media.

Ending is the story of Sandy, a young wife and mother whose husband has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s a story about the tunnel of grief she’s in in the final weeks of his life, and it covers not only her journey after his diagnosis but all of her memories of her short marriage. It’s not a light novel by any stretch of the imagination, and there is not a lot of humor like I found in An Available Man. It’s a story more about ideas and the process of grief than it is about character, and for that reason I felt a little removed from Sandy. It’s a tough read, but, thankfully, it’s a short novel. It was interesting to compare it to Wolitzer’s latest novel, which, while dealing with death, had much more developed characters and dashes of humor. Ending is more of a psychological portrait of grief."

source: publisher via NetGalley ( )

This book is about a woman coping with her husband's death from cancer. It's well written but dated (takes place in the era when doctors informed the family and not the ill person that they're terminal) and not very uplifting, to say the least. ( )