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Review: For the Living by LA Witt
For the last year, Jay Warren has struggled to find the nerve to tell his wife he’s gay. He’s ashamed of hiding it all this time and he doesn’t want to hurt her, so every time he gets the chance to tell her, he freezes up. The guilt has been almost unbearable, but when his wife dies suddenly, Jay’s conscience threatens to eat him alive.
Funeral director Scott Lawson deals with the bereaved every day of his life, and he’s also all too familiar with the inside of the closet. He offers Jay some much-needed compassion and understanding, and from that connection comes a friendship that quickly–perhaps too quickly–turns into something more.
But are grief, guilt, and loneliness the only things tying them together? Or will Scott get tired of being used as an emotional crutch before Jay realizes what he has?
- Publisher: Amber Quill Press, LLC (March 28, 2012)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007PAPWWY
- FTC Disclosure: given to me as an ARC by the author for the purposes of an honest review
I have a confession. I was a really big fan of the Showtime series Six Feet Under. Actually, the thought of being a funeral director in general is pretty interesting to me. So when I saw that LA Witt had written a book about a funeral director, I pretty much danced around in a circle (much like the pee pee dance, only without grabbing onto areas best not held onto in public) until I was able to get my hot little hands on a copy.
I couldn’t put it down from the first minute I picked it up. Jay is so conflicted over telling his wife that he’s gay that he’s drinking himself into oblivion. My heart hurt for him. It ached for her. And then when she dies before he’s able to tell her the truth, I cried like a little girl. Now Jay is left with an infinite amount of guilt and he still can’t talk to anyone about it!
When he locks eyes with the funeral director, Scott, I took notice. When they developed a friendship – an honest to goodness friendship – it was like a soothing balm to my heart. I loved watching these two develop their friendship, and I danced right along with them as they developed their friendship into something more.
I kind of thought that there might be a bigger conflict, but I think with all the internal conflict going on in Jay’s life, I think it was fitting that there wasn’t a meteor about to strike the earth or an angry mob with pitchforks looming outside their door. They had enough to deal with as it was.
Overall, I loved For the Living and I highly recommend it.
Rating: 5 meows
